FLOOD  TIDE 


DAN  I EJL    CHASE 


FLOOD  TIDE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  I 
DALLAS  •   ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


FLOOD  TIDE 


BY 

DANIEL  CHASE 


FRONTISPIECE  BT 

W.    B.   KING 


got  k 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1918 

AllRighttRetened 


,  1918 


BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  Electro  typed.    Published,  March,  1918 


TO 
FRED    PARKER    EMERY 

OF 
DARTMOUTH   COLLEGE 


2134G82 


BOOK  THE  FIRST 


FLOOD  TIDE 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 


ONE  character  in  literature  has  always  commanded  my 
sympathy.  I  feel  that  he  has  been  gravely  misjudged, 
criticized  without  cause,  mocked  without  reason.  I  refer 
to  Alnaschar,  Fifth  Brother  of  the  Barber  of  Bagdad. 

I  first  heard  of  Alnaschar  from  old  Henry  Rideout.  I 
was  four  years  old  at  the  time,  convalescent  from  typhoid. 
Henry  came  every  day  to  amuse  me  while  my  father  was 
away  at  the  store.  He  spun  me  yarns  of  sea  adventure, 
tales  of  China  voyages,  drawling  sagas  of  runs  ashore  in 
distant  ports.  Finally  he  exhausted  his  store  of  personal 
experience  and  fell  back  on  his  reading,  giving  me  queer 
and  distorted  versions  of  many  things,  from  Shakespeare 
to  yellow  backed  novels.  And  at  last  he  came  to  the 
Arabian  Nights  and  the  Barber's  tale  of  his  brother. 

"He  was  a  middling  queer  cuss,"  said  Henry,  wrinkling 
his  brow  in  an  effort  of  memory.  "And  as  near  as  I  can 
mind  it,  this  is  the  yarn.  Seems  that  one  day  when  trade 
was  dull  the  barber  got  to  bragging  about  his  family  in 
general  and  his  brothers  in  particular — he  had  a  sight 
of  them,  some  bad  and  the  rest  worse.  What  happened  to 
the  rest  of  them  I  disremember,  but  this  fifth  brother  of 
his  was  the  prize  one  of  the  lot.  After  the  barber's  old 
man  died — — " 

"How  did  he  die?"  I  asked,  unwilling  to  miss  any  of  the 
gory  details. 

"Kicked  by  a  camel,  I  reckon,"  said  Henry  with  ready 


4  FLOOD  TIDE 

invention.  "But  be  that  as  it  may,  he  passed  on  and  the 
barber  and  his  brothers  divvied  the  plunder  betwixt  them. 
And  with  his  share  this  Alnaschar  laid  in  a  stock  of  cheap 
glassware  and  crockery  and  such.  Then  he  piled  his  junk 
in  a  basket  that  he'd  stole  somewhere  and  sat  down  in  the 
square  to  wait  for  trade,  instead  of  going  out  and  drum- 
ming it  up.  Shows  the  kind  of  worthless  feller  he  was. 
And  whilst  he  was  waiting  for  some  poor  innocent  to  come 
along  and  be  fleeced,  he  starts  to  figure  out  how  he's  going 
to  come  out  on  his  venture. 

"  'This  here  glass,'  says  he,  'stood  me  a  hundred 
drachmas.  At  a  reasonable  profit  I'll  get  two  hundred 
drachmas  for  it  and  buy  some  more  truck.  Then,'  he  says, 
'I'll  pass  that  off  and  have  four  hundred  drachmas.  A 
smart  chap  like  me  won't  be  any  time  at  all  in  turning 
that  over  into  four  thousand.  And  before  long,  stands  to 
reason  that  I'll  have  twelve  thousand.  Then  maybe  I'll 
branch  out  into  the  brass  jewelry  and  glass  cGamond 
trade.  I'll  have  a  trotter  and  a  side-bar  buggy  and  a 
house  on  High  Street  with  a  slate  roof  and  a  stone  dog  in 
the  front  yard,  all  very  handsome.  And  pretty  soon  I'll 
have  a  hundred  thousand  drachmas.  Easily,'  he  says. 
'And  that'll  be  enough,'  says  he.  'I'll  lend  it  out  on  mort- 
gages at  a  stiffish  rate  and  retire.' 

"And  then  he  shakes  out  all  sail  and  really  starts  to 
imagine  things.  'I'll  shine  up  to  the  mayor's  daughter,' 
he  plans.  'Maybe  I'll  even  stand  for  deacon  at  the  Ortho- 
dox Church  and  subscribe  to  foreign  missions — not  very 
heavy,  but  just  enough  to  get  the  name  of  being  pious  and 
liberal.  And  if  the  mayor's  daughter's  got  any  sense  at 
all,  she'll  be  tickled  to  death  to  have  me.  But  after  we're 
spliced  I'll  show  her  who's  skipper  of  the  packet.  I  won't 
*  look  at  her.  No,  sir.  I'll  kick  and  carry  on  and  howl  and 
raise  Old  Ned  no  matter  what  she  does.  Nothing  is  going 
to  please  me  the  least  mite.  She'll  cook  me  a  bang-up 
dinner,  chicken  and  everything,  but  I'll  stay  out  on  the 
front  porch  and  won't  come  in.  She'll  send  the  butler  out, 


FLOOD  TIDE  5 

but  I'll  ship  him  back  a'kiting.  Then  she'll  dish  up  a  tray 
real  enticing  and  tote  it  out  herself.  I  won't  look  at  it. 
She'll  beg  me  to  eat.  I'm  danged  if  I  will.  She'll  get  down 
on  her  knees.  And  with  that  I'll  give  her  a  black  look  and 
raise  my  boot  and  kick  that  tray — 

Here  Henry  paused  for  effect  and  filled  his  pipe  with 
maddening  deliberation. 

"And  what  then?"  I  piped  eagerly. 

"Why,  just  what  a  body  might  expect,"  said  Henry. 
"He  kicked  out  and  busted  his  basket  fuU  of  truck  all  to 
smash.  And  everybody  in  town  laughed  at  him  and  agreed 
that  it  served  him  right." 

I  was  disappointed. 

"And  he  didn't  sell  his  glass?"  I  asked. 

"He  did  not.  Fact  is,  he  got  fined  for  littering  up  the 
road." 

"Nor  marry  the  mayor's  daughter?" 

"There  wasn't  any  mayor's  daughter,"  said  Henry,  re- 
fusing me  the  slightest  ray  of  hope.  "He  just  imagined 
that." 

"Oh!"  Somehow  or  other  I  saw  nothing  amusing  in 
Alnaschar's  downfall.  "But  what  did  he  do  then?" 

"I  don't  remember,  exactly,"  admitted  Henry.  "Most 
likely  he  went  down  to  the  coast  and  shipped  out  on  a 
whaler.  Most  good-for-nothing  chaps  seems  to  end  up 
that  way." 

In  common  with  the  rest  of  the  elder  generation  of 
Whitehaven  sailors,  Henry  considered  all  whalers  scum 
of  the  earth. 

After  he  had  clumped  away  I  meditated  upon  the  case 
of  Alnaschar.  His  treatment  of  the  mythical  mayor's 
daughter  I  admitted  was  scarcely  the  correct  thing,  but 
the  rest  of  it,  all  his  plans  for  wealth  and  position,  that 
appealed  to  me  immensely.  I  saw  nothing  wrong  in  that. 
I  was  sorry  for  Alnaschar,  not  because  he  had  suffered 
financial  ruin,  but  because  he  had  imagined  something  and 
been  disappointed. 


6  FLOOD  TIDE 

And,  despite  the  passage  of  years,  I  am  still  sorry  for 

him. 

Perhaps  a  fellow  feeling  influences  me,  for  my  story  is 
that  of  an  elder  Alnaschar.  I  have  been  a  dreamer,  a  suc- 
cessful dreamer  in  many  ways,  working  in  even  humbler 
stuff  than  the  "brass  jewelry  and  glass  diamond  trade." 
I  have  built  great  things  for  the  pleasure  of  building,  sac- 
rificed even  greater  things  for  my  visions,  tired  of  it  all, 
and  at  last  awakened  to  find  the  pavement  of  the  market 
place  glittering  with  the  strewn  fragments  of  my  fortune. 
Yet  I  am  not  a  failure.  I  have  both  succeeded  and  failed 
in  a  manner  which  puzzled  me  immensely.  .  .  . 

And  for  all  this,  for  my  failure  and  success,  there  is  but 
one  reason. 

I  am  a  dreamer. 


Yet  I  dislike  the  term  "dreamer."  To  my  mind  the 
dreamer  is  pale,  with  long  fair  hair,  given  to  midnight 
maunderings  and  helpless  abstraction  from  the  affairs  of 
the  world.  Through  this  book  I  have  said  much  of 
dreams,  but  I  have  used  the  word  for  lack  of  a  better.  I 
have  been  no  dreamer,  but  a  futurist;  futurists,  and  not 
dreamers,  build  bridges  of  moonbeams  to  distant  goals. 
The  dreamer  dreams  and  accomplishes  nothing ;  the  futur- 
ist, staring  after  to-morrow  and  trampling  to-day  under 
foot,  builds  where  the  dreamer  is  content  to  imagine. 

Dreams  are  wholly  disappointing,  while  even  in  abortive 
futurism  there  is  a  certain  satisfaction.  I  have  found  it 
so ;  I  have  even  found  satisfaction  in  looking  back,  through 
this  book,  on  the  time  when  yesterday  was  to-morrow.  I 
have  seen  myself  a  child  again,  with  dragons  lurking 
among  the  tall,  rank  weeds  of  the  neglected  garden  and 
ships  vanishing  beyond  the  Point  on  purple  seas  of  ro- 
mance; a  boy,  living  in  the  borderland  between  childish 
dreams  and  the  practical  life  about  me ;  a  youth  in  college, 
oppressed,  like  all  youth,  with  a  new-born  sense  of  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  7 

wasted  effort  and  unrelated  endeavor  of  life  and  planning 
to  do  away  with  it  forever;  a  man — and  yet  a  child  in 
many  ways — dreaming  over  business  and  persuading  my- 
self that  business  and  not  dreams  was  the  attraction.  I 
have  seen  myself  during  the  last  five  years  pursuing  an 
illusory  vision  of  happiness  and  at  last  coming  home  from 
the  dark  sea.  Even  now,  in  the  autumn  of  life,  I  find  that 
the  falling  leaves  reveal  far  blue  vistas,  glimpses  of  un- 
guessed  country,  unknown  fields  ...  I  am  still  a 
futurist.  .  .  . 

And  now  I  start  over  again,  only  a  little  wiser  than  be- 
fore. We  futurists  die  many  times  and  are  reborn  as 
often.  My  life  work,  the  work  of  my  old  life,  is  ended. 
As  a  child  I  dreamed  of  a  world  without  competition.  I 
then  intended  to  eliminate  entirely  the  waste  and  injustice 
of  competitive  business ;  I  have  succeeded  in  bringing  the 
ultimate  elimination  of  competition  one-tenth  of  a  second 
nearer  in  the  march  of  eternity.  With  that  I  am  content. 
How  many  of  us  accomplish  even  that  much  of  our  child- 
ish visions?  .  .  . 

We  are  all  children,  playing  on  the  broad  beach  whose 
distances  are  veiled  in  mystery;  playing,  building,  living 
our  cloud-passages  of  joy  and  sorrow  between  the  great 
sea  whence  we  came  and  the  dark  forest  into  which  we 
depart  at  the  day's  end.  We  work  in  sand,  in  the  unstable 
sand  worn  from  the  foundations  of  the  world  by  the  slow 
marching  years.  We  scratch  the  ground  plans  of  im- 
mense structures ;  palaces  with  driftwood  turrets,  seaweed 
gardens  and  stately  walks  edged  with  shining  pebbles; 
smooth-patted  mounds,  honeycombed  with  tunnels  and 
crowned  with  tufts  of  beach  grass  and  dune  flowers ;  vast 
bridges  spanning  the  slow  streams  meandering  down  from 
brackish  pools.  And,  before  night  softens  the  mystery  of 
the  dark  forest,  perhaps  we  have  built  an  outer  court,  a 
wall  studded  with  shells  and  starfish,  an  abutment  and 
half  an  arch  of  bridge;  the  rest  is  still  a  plan,  still  a  dream. 
No  matter ;  there  is  always  to-morrow — to-morrow  we  will 


8  FLOOD  TIDE 

build  better  and  more  wisely.  And  if  the  tide  rises  in  the 
night,  if  the  flood  tide  laps  and  crumbles  our  work  even 
as  we  dust  our  hands  and  turn  away  in  satisfaction — • 
there  is  still  to-morrow.  To-morrow  and  a  smooth 
beach.  . 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 


THE  first  thing  I  can  remember  is  being  suspended  by 
the  heels  over  a  half-hogshead,  set  under  the  eaves  to 
catch  the  drip  from  the  roof.  My  father  had  stirred  the 
water  until  it  was  one  great  circling  whirlpool,  ropy,  and 
black,  and  terrible,  and  had  then  held  me  over  it — just 
to  hear  me  howl,  I  imagine.  He  was  a  great  deal  of  an 
overgrown  boy  in  those  days,  although  in  later  times  he 
was  grave  enough.  I  think  that  my  mother  made  a  great 
to-do  over  it;  I  have  a  faint  recollection  of  her  rescuing 
me  from  a  watery  grave  and  scolding  my  father  in  mock- 
virago  fashion. 

"You  might  take  some  one  your  own  size,  you  great 
brute,"  she  said,  and  only  the  soft  lifted  curve  of  her 
cheek  close  to  mine  told  me  that  she  meant  nothing  seri- 
ous. I'm  not  sure,  but  I  think  there  was  a  sweet  Irish 
tang  to  her  low  voice,  the  barest  possible  suggestion  of 
a  brogue. 

My  father  must  have  threatened  to  treat  her  in  the 
same  manner,  for  she  fled  to  the  protecting  door  of  the 
house,  turned  to  make  faces  at  him,  and  bore  me  indoors 
to  be  sustained  and  comforted  with  gingerbread  men. 

I  have  but  one  other  remembrance  of  my  mother.  I 
had  heard  some  one  tell  how  the  Lord  "walked  in  the 
garden,  in  the  cool  of  the  day,"  and  had  stolen  down  one 
spring  morning  to  look  for  His  footprints  under  the  lilacs 
and  syringas  in  the  garden  behind  the  house.  The  grass 
was  still  drenched  with  dew,  my  feet  were  soon  chilled 
and  the  hem  of  my  night-shirt  in  a  sadly  bedraggled  state. 
I  found  no  footprints  save  those  of  the  nocturnal  snail 


10  FLOOD  TIDE 

and  must  have  set  up  a  most  lusty  wailing,  for  my  mother 
came  out  with  a  tartan  shawl  over  her  shoulders  and  two 
long,  shining  braids  of  hair  down  her  back.  She  tucked 
me  in  bed  again,  promising  to  help  me  in  my  search,  later 
in  the  day.  She  must  have  died  soon  after  that ;  I  myself 
was  near  death  with  typhoid  for  a  long  time — a  matter 
of  drains,  I  think,  and  not  the  result  of  this  early  morn- 
ing expedition.  I  know  that  when  I  came  downstairs 
again,  a  weak,  scraggly  shadow  of  a  boy,  she  was  gone. 
I  missed  her,  but  only  vaguely ;  her  loss  was  obscured  by 
the  fact  that  upon  coming  downstairs  again  I  graduated 
from  kilts  to  trousers  and  became  a  man. 

These  two  fragmentary  memories  stand  without  back- 
ground, absolutely  unconnected  with  anything  else  in  my 
experience.  They  seem  now  part  of  another  existence, 
connected  with  my  present  life  only  by  shadowy  links.  I 
retain  a  faint  impression  of  my  convalescence,  and  being 
propped  up  with  cushions  on  a  broad  window  ledge  look- 
ing out  over  the  straggling  garden  and  the  street  and 
the  house  roofs  lower  down  on  the  hill.  I  seem  to  recall 
the  view  from  this  window  as  it  appeared  to  me  then; 
a  low  swung  arch  of  the  horse  chestnut  tree  before  the 
house  framed  a  flawed  blue  sea  and  brown  rocks  and  oc- 
casional white  sails  passing  and  repassing  in  slow  contra- 
dance.  I  remember  exploring  the  house  as  I  grew 
stronger,  investigating  the  mysteries  of  lilac  clumps  and 
gnarled  apple  trees  and  the  shingled  henhouse  with  the 
yard  before  it  grown  up  to  a  jungle  of  prickly  weeds. 
And  clearest  of  all,  and  peculiar  to  this  early  period,  I 
recall  the  constant  procession  of  serving  girls  who  came, 
abode  their  hour,  and  passed  on  out  of  my  knowledge. 

They  came  and  went — not  servant  girls  in  the  modern 
sense,  but  girls  who  came  in  to  cook  and  to  clean  up  the 
house,  spinsters  who  poked  into  bureau  drawers  while 
my  father  was  away  at  the  store  and  who  called  me  "poor 
little  fellow,"  thereby  winning  my  contempt.  This  was 
before  the  days  of  the  modern  cook-girl  with  her  Scan- 


FLOOD  TIDE  11 

dinavian  accent,  songs  of  the  Fatherland  and  rudimentary 
ideas  on  the  construction  of  apple  pie.  Among  the  train 
there  was  one  old  lady  who  sticks  out  in  my  memory  for 
her  uncanny  knack  of  turning  everything  into  Irish  stew, 
a  dish  which  my  father  heartily  detested.  Despite  this 
failing  she  remained  longer  than  any  of  the  others,  long 
enough,  at  any  rate,  to  impress  herself  upon  my  memory. 
Perhaps  the  fact  that  she  had  the  rare  gift  of  silence 
had  something  to  do  with  my  father's  toleration  of  her 
weird  culinary  performances. 

But  she  left  us,  finally;  they  all  left  on  one  excuse  or 
another.  Their  departure  was  usually  the  signal  for 
rejoicing  on  both  sides. 

"Now,  by  Joe,  we'll  have  some  regular  grub,"  my  father 
would  say. 

And  we  would — for  a  while.  My  father  was  a  good 
cook — he  made  a  chowder  which  lingers  yet  as  a  bright 
spot  in  my  gustatory  memories — but  he  invariably  tired 
of  it  after  a  week  or  so.  I  usually  anticipated  him  by 
becoming  tired  of  washing  dishes  and  sweeping  floors — 
both  very  sketchy  performances  on  my  part.  Our  meals 
usually  degenerated  into  bread  and  milk,  supplemented 
by  canned  goods  from  the  store.  Sooner  or  later  the 
time  would  come  when  my  father,  after  rattling  about 
for  a  time  in  the  kitchen,  appeared  in  the  doorway  in 
disgust. 

"Which  is  it,  son,  beans  or  roast  chicken  with  all  the 
fixings?"  he  would  ask. 

I  cast  my  vote  for  chicken. 

"Good.  But  we'll  have  to  go  down  to  the  Province 
House  to  get  that,"  he  would  say.  "I  don't  believe  that 
beans  with  blue  mold  on  them  are  healthy,  anyway." 

The  next  day  we  would  have  a  new  girl.  The  first 
day  of  the  new  regime  was  always  marked  by  a  vigorous 
house  cleaning — my  assertions  that  I  had  cleaned  house 
the  day  before  being  wantonly  disregarded.  Surprising 
the  places  they  would  dig  dust  and  dirt  from — places 


12  FLOOD  TIDE 

where  I  would  never  have  thought  of  looking.  Usually, 
too,  they  pried  apart  my  carefully  stacked  dishes  and 
gave  them  all  a  thorough  washing,  perhaps  desiring  to 
avoid  unpleasant  discoveries  later. 


I  recovered  from  typhoid,  and,  at  the  age  of  four,  be- 
came a  partner  in  my  father's  business.  He  kept  a  store, 
a  combination  grocery-clothing-hardware  store  down  on 
Front  Street,  just  back  from  the  wharves.  It  was  alto- 
gether a  very  wonderful  store;  not  the  least  wonderful 
feature  of  it  was  the  weather  beaten  sign  over  the  door 
— JOHN  COFFIN,  in  great  fat  capitals.  This  was  my 
father's  name  and  mine  also. 

We  would  go  down  the  hill  together,  my  father  and 
I,  my  feet  drumming  along  between  the  heavier  bass  beats 
of  his  stride,  the  clean  morning  air  from  the  sea  coming 
in  cool  gusts  against  our  faces,  here  and  there  a  gray 
plume  of  smoke  rising  from  the  chimneys  and  the  occa- 
sional scream  of  gulls  from  the  harbor  breaking  the  si- 
lence. On  very  calm  mornings  we  could  hear  the  rattle 
of  blocks  and  creak  of  rigging  and  sometimes  catch  stray 
snatches  of  conversation  from  the  distant  boats,  or  hear 
the  thump  of  rowlocks  as  some  hake  fisher  brought  his 
catch  to  the  wharf.  It  was  all  strange  and  wonderful 
and  clean,  this  being  abroad  while  the  rest  of  the  world 
was  still  abed.  Long  after  this  I  came  across  the  phrase 
"Das  Morgenuhr  hat  Geld  ins  Mund"  in  some  textbook 
or  other  and  the  words  brought  it  all  back  to  me;  the 
calm  broken  only  by  our  clattering  footsteps  and  the 
glint  of  the  strong  morning  sun  on  my  father's  heavy 
black  beard  as  I  gazed  up  at  him.  Sometimes  he  met  my 
glance  and  smiled  down  on  me,  but  usually  his  gaze  was 
fixed  on  the  sails  of  the  fishing  fleet,  far  beyond  the  light 
house  on  the  morning  sea. 

As  we  approached  the  store  my  father  fished  the  great 


FLOOD  TIDE  13 

key  from  his  pocket  and  dangled  it  from  his  finger  as  he 
went  along.  We  clumped  over  the  loose-boarded  walk 
in  front  and  he  opened  and  swung  back  the  old  door.  A 
swirl  of  spicy  odors  marbled  with  stray  whiffs  of  coffee 
and  cinnamon  greeted  us,  the  cat  came  stretching  and 
mewing  forth  from  the  back  of  the  store — usually  followed 
by  a  sprawling  and  staggering  legion  of  offspring — and 
the  day's  work  was  begun. 

I  spent  the  greater  part  of  these  days  in  playing  about 
the  store-room  in  the  rear,  conducting  exploring  expedi- 
tions among  the  litter  of  bales  and  boxes  and  making  a 
general  nuisance  of  myself.  There  was  a  thin  stream  of 
customers  in  the  store  most  of  the  day,  women  with  mar- 
ket-baskets— a  vanished  race  now — and  fishermen  whose 
garments  smelt  most  strongly  of  their  calling  and  who 
wore  rubber  boots  and  flannel  shirts  however  hot  and  dry 
the  weather.  These  last  were  my  chief  delight ;  they  were 
a  weather  beaten  race  of  men,  loud  voiced  and  terrible 
chewers  of  tobacco.  They  would  demand  of  my  father 
"where  that  young  sculpin  was  at,"  and,  running  me  to 
earth  despite  my  shrieks  of  simulated  terror,  would  ride 
me  about  the  store  on  their  shoulder,  my  head  close  to 
the  blackened  hand-hewn  beams  among  the  fly  blown  lamps 
and  swinging  oilskins.  Once — red  letter  day! — one  of 
them  presented  me  with  a  miniature  brig,  carved  from 
bone  and  the  whole  cunningly  encased  in  a  bottle  smelling 
faintly  and  mysteriously  like  the  donor's  breath. 

Perhaps  I  am  beginning  my  search  for  causes  at  too 
early  a  date,  but  surely  these  first  years  of  my  life 
must  have  had  a  great  effect  on  what  came  after.  I 
must  have  had  a  strong  propensity  for  imagination  to 
begin  with  and  this  early  part  of  my  life  strengthened 
it.  My  principal  occupation  then,  as  it  has  been  since, 
was  imagining  things.  Curiosity  was  my  chief  charac- 
teristic ;  a  curiosity  always  gratified  by  my  father.  What- 
ever theory  of  education  he  had  consisted  of  answering 
my  questions  as  well  as  he  could,  never  answering  me  quite 


14  FLOOD  TIDE 

as  completely  as  I  desired,  but  always  leaving  a  little  tag 
of  uncompleteness  as  an  inspiration  to  further  question- 
ings. As  my  questions  broadened  in  scope  he  developed 
a  certain  quality  of  metaphor  and  simile  which  served 
admirably  to  link  things  together  and  bring  new  matters 
within  my  horizon. 

I  had  no  trouble  in  finding  material  for  inquiry  about 
the  store.  China,  for  instance;  somehow  I  had  built  up 
an  image  of  China  as  a  land  of  blue  and  yellow,  with 
many-skirted  pagodas  and  blue  arched  bridges  and  fish- 
ermen on  the  banks  of  impossibly  zigzag  streams,  prob- 
ably deriving  my  inspiration  from  an  incomplete  set  of 
cracked  crockery  at  home.  Then  I  found  a  connection 
between  the  tea  chests  at  the  store  and  the  set  of  crockery 
at  home  and  took  the  matter  to  my  father  for  solution. 

"I'm  not  up  on  China,"  he  confessed,  and  drummed 
reflectively  on  the  counter.  "My  voyages  were  mostly 
to  European  ports,  you  know.  Suppose  we  let  it  wait 
over  awhile;  guess  the  Eternal  Kingdom  won't  change 
while  we  wait." 

That  night,  by  some  strange  chance,  old  Henry  Rideout 
came  clumping  up  to  the  house  with  his  twisted  foot,  a 
tight  rolled  chart  beneath  his  arm.  He  and  my  father 
cleared  the  table  of  its  litter  of  books  and  tobacco  ash  and 
went  over  the  chart  together,  I  kneeling  on  a  chair  be- 
tween them  and  following  Henry's  stubby  finger  with 
breathless  interest. 

And  for  weeks  after  that  I  kept  a  sharp  lookout  over 
the  harbor  for  opium  pirates  and  junks  with  paper  sails 
and  great  staring  eyes  on  either  side  of  the  bow. 

There  was  another  result  of  this  manner  of  living.  I 
became  selfish,  not  intentionally  but  inevitably.  Both  at 
home  and  at  the  store  I  had  everything  I  asked  for ;  such 
a  thing  as  an  unattainable  desire  failed  to  enter  into  my 
calculations.  In  the  scheme  of  things  I  came  first,  with  the 
rest  of  the  world  a  bad  second. 

In  truth,  there  was  no  rest  of  the  world.     Most  of  my 


FLOOD  TIDE  15 

days  were  lonely;  I  knew  no  children  of  my  own  age  and 
was  quite  content  to  build  my  air  castles  and  conduct 
voyages  of  discovery  among  the  inexhaustible  mysteries 
of  the  store.  Once  I  fell  asleep  in  a  dim  cave  far  in  the 
rear  of  the  shed,  and  was  awakened  by  my  father  calling 
to  me  through  the  darkness.  He  carried  me  home  that 
night,  my  head  nodding  drowsily  over  his  shoulder. 

"Golly,"  I  said  sleepily,  "working  in  a  store  is  hard 
work,  isn't  it,  Dad?" 

And  he  agreed  quite  gravely  that  it  was. 


in 

It  was  soon  after  this,  I  think,  that  I  discovered  that 
there  were  other  stores  beside  my  father's. 

I  must  have  made  this  discovery  on  my  first  excursion 
into  the  town;  I  cannot  remember  straying  from  the 
streets  between  our  house  and  the  store  before  this.  I 
had  become  tired  of  playing  about  the  store  and  must 
have  wandered  through  the  front  door  and  down  the 
street  while  my  father  was  busy  elsewhere. 

I  went  along,  peering  into  back  yards  and  front  yards 
through  palings  and  getting  myself  thoroughly  lost  after 
a  while.  Then,  with  startling  abruptness,  I  came  out  into 
the  Square  and  discovered  other  stores.  My  world  rocked 
on  its  foundations. 

Even  the  towering  grandeur  of  the  Town  Hall,  directly 
across  from  me,  failed  to  hold  my  attention  in  the  face 
of  this  discovery.  I  gaped  at  these  other  stores ;  they  re- 
sembled my  father's  in  a  distant  fashion ;  there  were  coun- 
ters inside  with  boxes  canted  against  them;  people  came 
out  bearing  bundles.  ...  A  horrible  suspicion  entered 
my  mind.  Was  this  China?  I  knew  that  I  had  come  a 
long  way.  Perhaps. 

As  I  looked  about  for  pigtails  and  pagodas  a  familiar 
figure  crossed  the  street — the  man  who  had  presented  me 


16  FLOOD  TIDE 

with  the  carved  brig.  He  stared  at  me  and  then  ap- 
proached. 

"Ain't  you  lost,  so  far  from  home?"  he  inquired 
genially. 

That  settled  it ;  China  was  far  from  home  and  this  was 
China.  And  this  man  would  probably  shanghai  me  and 
make  me  work  my  passage  home  before  the  mast.  I  de- 
cided to  return  overland,  and,  without  answering  his  hail, 
I  turned  and  ran  back  the  way  I  had  come  as  fast  as  my 
legs  would  carry  me. 

He  shouted  after  me,  but  I  only  ran  the  faster.  Up 
streets  and  down  streets  I  ran.  Finally,  by  some  miracle, 
I  found  the  familiar  door  of  the  store.  I  shot  in,  pant- 
ing and  sobbing. 

My  father  took  the  news  calmly  enough,  after  he  had 
succeeded  in  making  out  what  I  was  trying  to  tell  him. 
Finally  he  understood  that  I  had  found  other  stores — 
he  disillusioned  me  on  the  China  part  of  it.  But  that 
made  it  worse.  Other  stores  in  town!  "Damnable"  was 
not  part  of  my  vocabulary  then,  but  that  was  the  way  I 
felt  about  it.  He  heard  me  through  with  the  utmost  pa- 
tience. 

"I  know,"  he  said,  when  I  had  finished.  "I've  known 
about  Adams  and  Bridges,  and  Patch  Brothers  and  all 
those  other  fellows  for  a  long  time.  But  I  didn't  want  to 
bother  you  about  it.  You  see,  Whitehaven  is  a  pretty 
big  town  now  and  there's  more  trade  than  one  store  could 
handle.  And  if  this  was  the  only  store  in  town  I  could 
put  prices  as  high  as  I  liked,  and  folks  would  either  have 
to  buy  of  me  or  go  without." 

This  argument  impressed  me  as  eminently  fair,  and  I 
considered  it  as  best  I  could. 

"And  if  some  one  else  ran  the  only  store  in  town  they 
might  raise  the  prices  of  things,  too,"  I  suggested. 

"That's  just  it,"  he  agreed.  "You've  hit  it  first  shot. 
We  act  as  a  check  on  one  another,  you  see.  You  can't 
get  along  without  competition.  ...  By  the  way,  Lucy 


FLOOD  TIDE  '  17 

said  something  about  making  some  sugar  cookies  this  af- 
ternoon. You  don't  know  a  healthy  young  lad  with  an 
appetite,  do  you?" 

So  ended  my  first  lesson  in  economics.  Lucy,  our  cook 
pro  tern,  was  the  possessor  of  a  famous  recipe  for  cookies, 
handed  doAvn  from  her  grandmother's  time,  and  I  hurried 
away  up  the  hill  to  assure  her  that  her  cookies  would 
never  gather  mold  while  I  had  my  health  and  appetite. 

That  afternoon  I  stuffed  the  front  of  my  blouse  with 
cookies  and  climbed  to  my  favorite  perch  in  one  of  the 
apple  trees — the  cookies  suffered  in  the  ascent,  I  remem- 
ber, and  the  fragments  sifted  down  into  my  boots,  mak- 
ing me  feel  like  an  early  Christian  doing  penance — and 
sat  down  to  reason  out  the  matter  as  best  I  could  with 
my  limited  knowledge  of  the  world.  But  this  knowledge 
was  so  limited  that  I  made  a  sad  botch  of  it;  the  only 
definite  conclusion  I  made  was  that  my  father  was  a  man 
of  unparalleled  generosity  in  allowing  this  state  of  af- 
fairs to  continue.  After  all,  these  other  stores  appeared 
to  me  highly  unnecessary. 

But  I  didn't  tell  my  father  what  I  thought.  He 
brought  up  the  subject  again  that  evening,  as  we  sat 
together  in  the  living  room  after  supper.  He  went  into 
the  matter  rather  thoroughly,  elaborated  his  views  on 
the  necessity  of  competition  and  proved  his  case  to  his 
own  satisfaction  and  my  own  bewilderment.  I  clung  to 
my  original  doubt  with  a  new  found  stubbornness ;  it  was 
the  first  time  that  I  had  thought  for  myself  and  the  first 
time  that  I  had  disagreed  with  my  father's  opinions.  I 
enjoyed  the  sensation. 

Competition  impressed  my  youthful  mind  as  something 
eminently  unfair  and  wasteful.  I  still  have  that  impres- 
sion, changed  somewhat,  and  with  the  direct  sense  of  per- 
sonal injury  gone  from  it,  but  still  much  the  same.  I 
had  imagined  a  world  with  our  store  as  the  center; 
abruptly  I  discovered  a  world  in  which  the  store  was 
merely  a  satellite  of  a  very  minor  planet  indeed.  It  hurt. 


18  FLOOD  TIDE 

Before  I  went  to  bed  that  night  I  planned  to  do  away 
with  competition  entirely  and  forever — to  abolish  it  by 
decree  when  I  attained  wisdom  and  manhood. 

We  often  talked  together  in  the  evening  in  this  man- 
ner — or  rather  my  father  talked  and  I  made  valiant  ef- 
forts to  follow  him.  Sometimes  he  read  to  me  and  some- 
times talked ;  and  once  or  twice  I  remember  his  breaking 
off  in  the  midst  of  a  story  and  picking  up  his  book  again. 
I  have  always  thought  that  he  did  this  to  avoid  bringing 
in  my  mother's  name,  for  he  never  trusted  himself  to 
speak  of  her.  I  learned  her  maiden  name  and  her  age 
from  the  stone  in  the  old  graveyard,  but  that  is  all  I 
know  of  her. 


It  is  quite  likely  that  I  discovered  Whitehaven  by  de- 
grees, the  unwelcome  companion  of  boys  older  than  my- 
self. But,  looking  back,  I  seem  to  find  myself  cast  into 
it  all  at  once.  I  must  have  been  eight  years  old  at  the 
time. 

I  carried  a  torch,  as  I  remember  this  sudden  discovery ; 
an  evil  smelling,  oil  dripping,  flaring  and  guttering  con- 
traption. The  stick  rests  in  the  waistband  of  my  trou- 
sers and  produces  an  anticipatory  Thanksgiving  effect. 
I  march  at  the  elbow  of  a  stout  man  with  a  shining  big 
mouthed  horn  looped  over  his  shoulder  in  a  glorified  blan- 
ket roll.  He  scowls,  puffs  and  produces  the  melodious 
oompah-oompah  part  of  a  soul-stirring  music  which 
marches  with  me.  He  pauses  and  gasps  for  breath;  with 
the  pause  his  face  returns  to  human  form.  He  reaches 
out  a  hand  and  pulls  me  down  to  earth. 

"You  hold  that  torch  where  I  can  see  my  sheets,"  he 
commands  gruffly.  "What  d'you  think  you  are — the 
whole  peerade?" 

"Yessir,"  I  answer  eagerly. 

He  scowls  doubtfully,  then  suddenly  purses  his  lips 
and  shatters  the  air  again  with  his  two  notes  up  and 


FLOOD  TIDE  19 

down  the  scale.  I  hold  the  torch  closer,  to  the  immediate 
peril  of  his  eyebrows.  But  he  seems  satisfied  and  I  surely 
am. 

The  music  crashes  to  a  superb  finale;  the  staccato  beat 
of  a  drum  emerges  from  the  ambush  of  sound;  the  re- 
splendent uniform  beside  me  empties  its  horn  and  clamps 
on  a  fresh  sheet  of  music  as  we  march.  From  one  side 
of  his  mouth  he  informs  his  neighbor,  a  tall  man  with 
an  equally  resplendent  uniform,  that  these  hills  sure  raise 
hell  with  a  man's  wind.  The  tall  man  agrees  that  he  is 
hooting  right.  I  treasure  their  utterances. 

Beyond  the  tall  man  is  another  torch,  borne  sturdily 
aloft  by  Dick  Stowell.  Ahead,  a  third  torch  bobs  along 
over  the  shoulder  of  Bunny  Long;  other  torches  tell  that 
the  rest  of  the  gang  are  scattered  among  the  band.  I  half 
envy  the  Bemish  kids;  they  march  with  the  front  rank. 

"Ain't  it  great,  Coffin?"  calls  Stowell. 

"Ain't  it  great?"  I  echo. 

Bunny  turns,  a  streak  of  oil  from  brow  to  chin.  "Gee, 
I  hope  they  march  all  night!" 

A  shape  materializes  beside  me. 

"Aw,  let  me  lug  it  for  a  while,  Coffy,"  it  begs.  "You 
can  have  it  again  when  they  begin  to  play.  Honest. 
Come  on,  let  me  lug  it!" 

I  shift  the  butt  of  the  torch  to  an  easier  position  and 
refuse.  The  shape  tries  its  blandishments  on  Dick,  with 
the  same  results.  It  drops  back  and  trudges  disconso- 
lately in  our  rear. 

Then,  as  I  remember  it,  we  reached  the  brow  of  the  hill 
above  the  railroad  station.  Stowell,  Bunny,  the  fat  man 
with  the  horn  all  were  forgotten.  I  stared  open  mouthed 
ahead.  All  High  Street  blazed  with  dancing  torches,  lines 
of  them,  four  abreast,  moving  in  rhythmic  beat.  The 
long  lines  twinkled,  dwindled  in  the  distance,  swung  around 
the  corner  by  the  Common,  reappeared  and  were  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  yawning  gulf  of  Front  Street.  A  million 
torches — more  than  a  million.  Here  and  there  trans- 


20  FLOOD  TIDE 

parencies  and  banners  punctuated  the  lines.  Another 
band  throbbed  and  brayed  in  the  distance. 

I  gaped,  faced  about,  and  looked  back.  The  band  on 
which  my  torch  shed  illumination  headed  the  second  sec- 
tion. Down  the  winding  slope  to  the  station  wavered 
more  lights — another  million  torches.  Line  after  line 
they  stretched  away;  banners,  marching  men  and  flick- 
ering lights ;  the  scuffling  of  innumerable  feet  over  frozen 
ground ;  "hep — hep — I  had  a  good  job  but  I — hep — hep." 
Half  way  down  the  line  a  transparency  blazed  up  in  a 
sudden  jet  of  flame;  it  rose  and  fell  as  the  bearer  tried  to 
beat  out  the  fire,  to  an  accompaniment  of  jeers;  it  soared 
in  an  abrupt  arc  and  blazed  steadily  in  a  vacant  lot. 

The  advancing  front  line  loomed  above  me  as  I  gaped ; 
every  man  of  them  ten  feet  high,  wonderful  in  red  coats, 
blue  pants  and  white  capes.  Overhead  a  great  banner 
stretched  taut  in  the  still  evening  air — CLEVELAND 
AND  HENDRICKS  in  great  shining  letters.  The  drum, 
now  beyond  me,  resounded  in  a  sharp  thunder  roll — a 
pause — a  sharp  double  tap — and  the  band  burst  forth 
into  music  beautiful  beyond  all — well,  the  band  burst 
forth  into  music. 

"As  I  was  walking  down  the  street 

I  found  a  dollar  and  a  quarter, 
Ten  thousand  Micks  layed  down  their  bricks 
At  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne  Water." 

So  sang  a  derisive  voice  from  the  silent  crowd  on  the 
sidewalk.  There  was  a  perceptible  sway  of  the  marching 
ranks  toward  the  sound;  a  sharp  command  and  they 
swayed  back  again  into  line. 

"Not  yet,  laddy  bucks,  not  yet.  We're  here  to  con- 
vert the  benighted  to  the  love  of  Grover — peaceably  if  we 
can.  Wait  a  while.  .  .  .  You  lad,  scuttle  ahead  before 
you  get  hurted." 

I  scuttled  ahead  and  took  up  my  place  again. 


FLOOD  TIDE  81 

A  drum  beat  within  me;  I  stepped  high.  This  was 
Whitehaven  as  it  should  be;  marching  throngs,  lights, 
music,  massed  crowds  on  the  sidewalks — and  myself  in  the 
very  center  of  it.  We  descended  the  undulating  slope  of 
the  hill  between  lines  of  silent  watchers ;  the  torches  set 
the  many-paned  windows  of  the  old  houses  aglow  and 
bathed  their  frowning  fronts  in  new  beauty.  We  reached 
the  Common,  swung  around  one  side  and  entered  the 
Square;  the  white  pillared  town  house  frowned  down  on 
us  in  disapproval.  The  great  bell  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
boomed  eight  as  we  marched  by;  our  music  was  momen- 
tarily obscured.  The  booming  ceased,  and  the  music 
soared  on,  triumphant  over  time. 

Across  the  lower  end  of  the  Square  hung  a  great  ban- 
ner, dependent  from  the  roofs  on  either  side.  The  ranks 
ahead  reached  ineffectually  for  it  with  their  torches.  Two 
men  from  the  last  rank  fell  back;  a  third  sprang  aloft  on 
their  locked  arms ;  a  torch  shot  swiftly  up.  The  banner 
smouldered,  then  showed  a  tiny  spark  of  blaze.  A  shout 
and  shower  of  debris  from  the  sidewalk  and  the  pyramid 
dissolved.  As  we  passed  below,  the  blaze  grew  to  a  con- 
suming flare;  the  painted  letters  of  the  BLAINE  AND 
LOGAN  stood  forth  in  fire ;  then  the  rope  parted  and  two 
sweeping  arcs  of  blazing  canvas  scattered  the  sidewalk 
crowds.  A  yell  of  delight  surged  back  along  the  ad- 
vancing lines. 

A  yell  of  a  different  sort  went  up  as  we  passed  Tuttle 
and  Wetherbee's  Grain  and  Feed  Store.  The  door  in 
the  gable  opened  and  closed  with  a  bang,  leaving  a  limp, 
dangling  figure  swinging  from  the  projecting  beam  over- 
head. For  a  moment  the  reality  of  it  sickened  me,  brought 
my  heart  into  my  throat.  Then,  as  the  figure  twisted 
around  and  faced  the  coming  procession  I  recognized  an- 
other piece  of  pleasantry.  A  placard  on  the  straw  stuffed 
paunch  announced  that  this  was  Cleveland — a  delicate 
satire,  the  humor  of  which  failed  to  appeal  to  the 
marchers. 


22  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Keep  your  eyes  skun,  Jimmy,"  advised  the  fat  man, 
in  a  pause  of  the  music. 

The  tall  man  with  the  slip  horn  eyed  him  morosely. 
"I  just  got  the  old  horn  straightened  out  from  the  last 
time,"  he  said.  "If  any  son  of  a  sea-cook  smashes  her 
again — ." 

He  drifted  off  into  muttered  threats.  I  listened,  won- 
dering. 

We  swung  into  Front  Street  and  went  on.  We  passed 
my  father's  store,  tightly  shuttered  and  dark,  the  raised 
walk  before  it  a  haven  of  refuge  for  the  women  folk.  Fur- 
ther on  we  passed  under  the  bowsprit  of  the  Polydore,  the 
last  of  the  Whitehaven  three-stickers,  poked  inquiringly 
across  the  street.  Dark  figures  lined  the  jibboom  over- 
head, arms  resting  comfortably  on  the  spar,  their  illumi- 
nated feet  on  the  taut  footropes  below.  I  envied  them 
their  bird's  eye  view  of  the  procession. 

We  went  on,  bands  playing,  torches  wavering  and  flick- 
ering, two  million  feet — no  less — rising  and  falling  in 
rhythmic  tramp  before  me,  two  million  more  echoing  be- 
hind. We  wound  up  hill,  and  the  lights  before  made  a 
glittering  Jacob's  ladder  to  the  Milky  Way;  we  writhed 
down  hill  again  and  a  glittering,  shimmering  lane  of 
lights  followed  us  as  the  children  of  Hamelin  followed  the 
Pied  Piper.  We  passed  through  the  Back  District,  where 
the  Portuguese  lived,  and  were  greeted  with  uproarious 
applause  from  lines  of  swarthy  faces.  This,  by  the  way, 
was  the  only  section  that  did  applaud  our  progress.  We 
marched  and  countermarched  through  the  broken-backed 
Whitehaven  streets,  doubling  and  twisting;  the  band 
played,  the  torches  smoked  and  shone,  the  marchers 
shouted  songs,  crowds  without  end  lined  the  way,  the  grim 
old  Colonial  fronts  frowned  down  on  our  boisterous  prog- 
ress and  made  a  bad  job  of  it. 

Bodily,  I  stumbled  along,  an  insignificant  part  of  the 
spectacle,  bearing  my  torch  which  by  this  time  had 
tripled  its  weight.  Mentally — and  perhaps  this  is  a  good 


FLOOD  TIDE  23 

indication  of  the  kind  of  boy  I  was — I  climbed  the  porch 
of  the  old  Macomber  house  and  reviewed  the  procession. 
From  that  vantage  point  you  got  a  view  of  the  throng 
approaching  down  Queen  Street;  without  turning  your 
head  you  could  see  them  wheel  and  file  away  among  the 
network  of  streets  toward  the  waterfront.  I  made  a  men- 
tal picture  of  it,  every  figure  heroic  size,  every  torch  out- 
shining the  light  on  Great  Head.  My  only  regret  was 
that  I  had  but  one  body  to  contribute  to  the  spectacle; 
I  wanted  two — one  to  march  and  the  other  to  stand  aside 
and  watch  the  first  march  by. 

We  turned  into  Front  Street  again  and  the  fat  man 
with  the  horn  was  visibly  relieved. 

"All  straight  going  now,  Jimmy,"  he  observed  cheer- 
fully. 

"Yep,"  answered  the  slip-horn  artist.  He  sniffed  fas- 
tidiously. "Stinking  hole,  isn't  it?" 

We  were  by  this  time  nearly  under  the  bowsprit  of  the 
Polydore  again.  I  sniffed,  in  imitation  of  the  tall  man. 
There  was  indeed  an  overpowering  smell  of  fish  in  the 
air.  The  bowsprit  loomed  overhead,  the  black  spider  web 
of  rigging  meshing  the  stars. 

Then  many  things  happened.  From  the  spar  above 
came  the  silvery  trill  of  a  bos'n's  pipe;  the  crimson  flare 
of  a  Coston  light  lit  up  the  low  roofs  of  the  shacks  across 
the  street.  Twin  spouts  of  water  shot  from  the  bow- 
sprit, falling  in  glittering  arcs,  every  drop  a  ruby.  One 
played  on  the  rear  of  the  first  section,  one  on  the  head 
of  the  advancing  column.  The  low  roofs  sprouted  fig- 
ures ;  arms  rose  and  fell,  showering  the  uniformed  ranks 
with  a  shrapnel  of  odoriferous  cods'  heads.  In  the  mo- 
mentary silence  that  followed  the  assault  came  the  rapid 
clank  of  pumps  from  the  deck  of  the  Polydore.  The 
clock  on  the  Orthodox  Church  cleared  its  throat  with  a 
preliminary  rasp  and  started  to  boom  the  hour. 

Then,  quite  suddenly,  the  tall  man  and  I  stood  alone 
in  a  cleared  space.  The  band  vanished  in  a  compact  rush 


24  FLOOD  TIDE 

to  the  sidewalk.  The  bell  mouth  of  the  tall  man's  horn 
had  been  the  billet  of  a  particularly  squashy  cod's  head ; 
he  swore  shrilly  and  danced  in  rage,  defying  the  universe 
to  come  on. 

They  came.  A  roar  of  voices  rolled  over  the  tall  man 
and  reduced  his  cursing  to  visible  but  inarticulate  mouth- 
ing; a  dark  phalanx  charged  from  a  side  street  and  fell 
upon  the  flank  of  the  marchers;  Front  Street,  from  end 
to  end,  exploded  in  a  sudden  riot  of  combat.  Dark  fig- 
ures dropped  from  roofs,  caught  their  balance,  and 
charged  with  joyous  whoops.  Torches  rose  and  fell  and 
vanished  underfoot. 

My  island  of  isolation  narrowed  swiftly.  The  tall  man 
joined  the  combat,  his  horn  glittering  in  flailing  blows. 
Still  the  lines  retreated.  They  joined.  By  some  miracle 
I  found  myself  raised  aloft  on  shoulders,  squeezed  up- 
ward instead  of  being  trampled  underfoot. 

I  swayed  and  reeled  as  the  crowd  surged  beneath  me. 
Fists  thudded;  the  shouting  dwindled  to  grunts  and 
sharp  intakes  of  breath.  Intent,  drawn  faces  appeared 
and  vanished  in  the  swirl  of  combat.  I  watched,  still 
clutching  my  torch,  without  the  slightest  feeling  of  dan- 
ger. 

Then,  above  the  drone  of  battle,  I  heard  my  name. 

"Jack !" 

I  looked,  and  saw  my  father  staring  down  from  the 
flat  roof  opposite.  For  a  moment  his  eyes  held  mine.  I 
was  suddenly  afraid. 

"Keep  up!"  he  called,  making  a  trumpet  of  his  hands. 
He  swung  over  the  edge,  dangled  a  moment,  and  dropped. 
He  straightened,  located  me  swiftly,  and  shot  into  the 
crowd.  Not  into  it,  but  under  it;  his  head  when  he  dis- 
appeared was  waist-high.  The  mass  of  men  reeled  under 
the  impact.  He  disappeared,  but  a  sub-surface  commo- 
tion marked  his  passage.  Figures  surged  apart  sud- 
denly and  unaccountably;  one  man  shot  aloft  and  hung 
there  for  a  moment,  grinning  foolishly  at  me  across  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  25 

heaving  backs  below.  A  fresh  commotion  and  he  up-ended 
suddenly  and  vanished  with  a  waving  of  legs.  My  sup- 
port rocked  violently.  I  clutched  desperately  with  my 
free  hand,  wavered,  toppled  backward — and  was  grasped 
from  behind. 

"Hold  tight,  son,"  said  a  familiar  voice.  My  father's 
left  arm  went  about  me;  we  began  to  move  slowly  out 
of  the  press.  We  gained  a  step,  swayed  as  some  fresh 
onslaught  set  the  crowd  swaying.  We  stood  a  moment, 
his  arm  a  bar  of  iron  about  my  waist,  the  veins  on  his 
forehead  standing  out  with  the  strain.  A  giant  of  an 
Irishman  faced  slowly  toward  us  as  the  mob  turned,  a 
frayed  fringe  of  his  rubber  cape  clinging  about  his  neck 
in  a  tattered  ruff.  He  grinned  cavernously  and  aimed  a 
mighty  fist  at  my  father.  My  torch  swung  down,  my 
father's  right  hand  shot  up,  palm  outward;  both  hand 
and  torch  struck  at  the  same  moment.  A  look  of  content 
overspread  the  Irishman's  face,  his  eyes  closed,  and,  as 
though  pulled  by  an  invisible  string,  he  slumped  down  out 
of  sight. 

We  became  the  center  of  a  little  whirlpool  of  activity. 
Fists  shot  out,  fell  short  or  were  beaten  down  by  my 
father's  free  hand.  I  swung  my  torch,  now  a  battered 
and  tinkling  wreck,  belaboring  every  head  within  reach. 
A  swing  of  the  crowd  carried  us  under  the  projecting  bow- 
sprit; the  dolphin  striker  loomed  overhead,  just  beyond 
my  reach. 

"Up,  Jackie,"  gasped  my  father.  I  shot  up  as  he 
heaved,  grasped  the  backropes  and  swung  up  in  safety. 
A  moment,  and  my  father  followed  me  in  a  mighty  leap, 
those  below  clutching  in  vain  at  his  dangling  heels. 

He  breathed  heavily  for  a  moment,  then  laughed. 

"They're  too  close  to  do  much  damage,"  he  said.  Then 
he  turned  to  me  quickly.  "Not  hurt,  are  you?" 

Now  that  I  was  safe,  I  was  crying — and  ashamed  of  it. 

"N-no,"  I  sobbed.  "But  I  b-busted  my  torch  and  I 
wanted  to  keep  it." 


26  FLOOD  TIDE 

Then,  as  abruptly  as  it  began,  the  fight  was  over.  The 
mob  below  broke  into  fleeing  and  pursuing  units.  A 
great  shout  from  the  Square  told  that  the  first  column 
had  been  routed.  The  Coston  light  subsided  to  a  red 
point,  and,  with  a  final  resonant  hum,  the  church  clock 
finished  striking  the  hour. 


Whenever,  in  these  later  years,  I  think  of  the  White- 
haven  of  my  boyhood  it  stands  forth  in  the  lurid  colors 
of  that  night,  illuminated  in  the  high  light  of  adventure. 
The  prosaic  old  town  of  my  later  remembrances,  with  its 
dull  houses,  dusty  streets  somnolent  under  plumed  elms, 
deserted  wharves  fringed  with  sea-green  beards  swaying  in 
the  slow  tides — all  that  is  quite  another  place. 

In  this  old  Whitehaven  romance  was  always  just 
around  the  next  crooked  corner  of  the  winding  street. 
The  marshes  behind  the  town  were  the  shores  of  the  High 
Barbaree,  their  winding  channels  all  unknown  rivers  to  be 
explored  on  rafts  consisting  of  three  railroad  ties  nailed 
together  with  driftwood.  The  wind-swept,  sun-drenched 
sickle  of  golden  beach  was  the  Sahara — disregarding  the 
incongruity  of  the  ocean — its  dunes  were  mighty  hills  and 
its  scattered  pines  marked  oases. 

But  this  Whitehaven  has  vanished.  Perhaps  it  existed 
only  in  my  imagination ;  perhaps  it  still  exists  in  the  mind 
of  some  youngster  running  about  town  to-day. 

Still  there  has  been  a  real  and  evident  change  in  the 
town.  There  was  brave  talk  of  electric  cars  as  I  grew 
older;  they  finally  materialized  during  the  years  when  I 
was  away  at  college — bob-tailed  little  cars  which  pitched 
and  clattered  their  way  along  the  quiet  streets.  With 
them  came  the  change;  they  brought  Sunday  trippers 
from  the  mill  towns  inland — the  same  towns  that  had 
sent  the  Democratic  torch  light  parade.  A  sporadic 
growth  of  bathing  houses  sprang  up  along  the  curve  of  the 
beach,  Front  Street  took  up  the  fish  dinner  trade,  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  27 

picture  post  card  made  its  appearance  and  the  old  White- 
haven  was  gone  forever.  Sunday  became  a  day  of  noise 
and  crowded  streets,  and  after  a  few  weak  efforts  to  get 
back  into  the  old  quiet  fashion  the  town  finally  gave  in 
and  tailed  along  with  the  procession. 

The  change  brought  prosperity  of  a  sort,  but  it  has 
taken  more  than  it  gave.  The  old  charm  is  gone  and  gone 
forever.  Factories  have  sprung  up.  There  is  a  power 
plant  on  the  border  of  the  marsh.  The  Point,  across  the 
harbor,  has  been  covered  with  bungalows  and  more  pre- 
tentious summer  dwellings.  There  is  a  new  macadam  road 
across  the  marsh,  a  broad  gray  strip  by  day  and  a  flick- 
ering firefly  lane  by  night. 

But  to  return  to  that  lurid  night  of  the  Cleveland- 
Elaine  campaign.  I  remember  that  Stowell  and  I  talked 
about  it  later — years  later.  We  were  wiser  and  older 
then,  immeasurably  older.  We  had  attained  high  school 
and  long  pants.  Cleveland  had  been  elected,  had  served 
his  term,  been  defeated  for  reelection  by  Harrison  and 
was  running  again.  We  discussed  the  campaign  and 
added  to  our  consciousness  of  wisdom  by  contrasting  it 
with  memories  of  past  campaigns.  And,  of  course,  we 
recalled  and  exchanged  remembrances  of  the  torch  light 
parade  and  the  resultant  row. 

"What  a  crazy  night  that  was !"  Dick  said.  "My 
brother  Frank  came  home  with  two  black  eyes  and  half  a 
shirt.  And  I  got  whopped  for  staying  out  late." 

I  ventured  a  vague  question.  "What  did  you  think 
of  it  at  the  time?" 

He  considered.  "I  thought  it  was  good  fun,"  he  said 
unimaginatively. 

"No  more?" 

"No.  What  other  view  of  it  could  I  take?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  answered  and  paused  helplessly. 
"You  couldn't  look  at  it  in  any  other  way,  I  suppose. 
.  .  .  You  know  that  engraving  down  in  the  Town  Hall — • 
Napoleon  at  the  bridge  of  Lodi?" 


28  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Yes,"  he  admitted  suspiciously.  "Napoleon  with  a 
flag  and  the  rest  of  the  crowd  tearing  after  him;  off  in 
the  clouds  scenes  from  Napoleon's  future — St.  Helena 
tucked  away  in  one  corner.  What  about  it?" 

"I  felt  like  that— only  more  so." 

He  stared  at  me  blankly,  evidently  not  understanding 
in  the  least.  I  myself  only  half  understood  what  I  tried 
to  express. 

But  I  know  that  in  my  visions  there  was  no  St.  Helena. 


I  spare  you  a  reconstruction  of  my  early  school  days. 
I  was  not  interested  in  school.  Few  boys  are.  Thanks 
to  my  father's  instruction  I  was  spared  the  necessity  of 
learning  to  read  and  write  and  perform  the  simpler  arith- 
metical calculations.  Beyond  the  fact  that  I  covered  the 
first  two  grades  in  one  year  my  recollections  of  school 
are  distinctly  fragmentary  in  character. 

I  have  the  impression  that  primary  education,  at  that 
time,  was  passing  through  a  period  of  transition  from 
the  old  "three  R"  form  to  the  more  modern  form  of  educa- 
tion— the  system  that  considers  the  child  as  an  individual 
problem  rather  than  as  one  of  a  row  of  vessels  to  be  filled 
to  a  certain  level  with  information.  I  remember  gray- 
headed  and  bearded  members  of  the  school  committee  com- 
ing to  visit  the  school,  clad  in  ceremonial  creaking  boots 
and  unaccustomed  boiled  shirts.  They  listened  solemnly 
to  our  singing  and  inspected  our  crude  water  colors  of 
apples,  flowers  and  geometrical  forms  and  then  went  away 
shaking  their  heads.  Through  the  door  one  saw  them 
consult  doubtfully  in  the  corridors,  no  doubt  lamenting 
the  Zeitgeist  that  had  forced  these  departures  from  the 
good  old  methods.  One  of  them,  after  sniffing  and  snort- 
ing at  our  highfalutin'  ideas,  attempted  to  put  us  through 
a  drill  in  mental  arithmetic,  getting  himself  most  sadly 


FLOOD  TIDE  29 

tangled  in  the  process,  to  his  discomfiture  and  the  re- 
joicing of  his  more  progressive  colleagues. 

What  impresses  me  now  is  the  fact  that  even  with 
these  improvements  there  was  absolutely  no  connection 
between  school  and  life.  Perhaps  that  is  why  I  remember 
so  little  of  it.  We  fretted  through  simple  and  compound 
fractions  without  the  slightest  notion  of  their  practical 
application.  We  had  legions  of  unassociated  things 
beaten  into  our  reluctant  young  heads — things  that  we 
should  have  learned  easily  and  as  a  matter  of  course. 
We  were  not  taught ;  we  had  lists  of  facts  set  before  us, 
to  be  committed  to  memory  because  it  was  so  ordained. 

Geography  alone  interested  me — merely  because  charts 
and  maps  were  familiar  grounds  to  me. 

But  even  here  school  failed  most  lamentably.  Most 
of  us  gathered  a  large  contempt  of  book  knowledge  from 
reading  that  "Oceanica  includes  all  the  islands  of  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean  south  of  the  Tropic  of  Cancer;  it  exports 
tobacco,  sugar,  copra  and  rice,"  and  then  sitting  at  the 
feet  of  Captain  Bill  Hawkins  while  he  told  us  of  atolls 
and  palm  trees  and  natives  with  flashing  white  teeth.  Why 
were  their  teeth  white?  Because  they  were  cannibals  and 
needed  them  in  their  business. 

"Ah,  boys,  you  haven't  eaten  until  you've  et  human 
flesh!"  he  would  say,  and  then  neglect  to  state  whether 
he  had  ever  eaten  or  not.  I  imagine  that  he  got  as  much 
fun  out  of  his  stories  as  the  listeners.  He  told  us  highly 
colored  tales  of  pirates  in  lateen  rigged  proas,  showed 
us  Malay  knives  with  crinkly  blades,  and  enlightened  us 
about  copra.  It  was  not  mined,  as  we  had  supposed. 

Or  old  Schrader,  from  the  heights  of  his  ninety  years, 
would  tell  us  of  slaving  voyages,  of  African  swamps,  and 
rivers  running  rippleless  between  green  arching  walls. 
He  told  us  of  the  time  they  were  overhauled  by  an  Eng- 
lish frigate  off  the  Brazilian  coast  and  got  rid  of  their 
incriminating  cargo. 

"How  do  you  t'ink  ?"  he  queried. 


30  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Shoot  'em?"  ventured  Dick  Stowell. 

"Yah!  With  bowder  so  dear,  too?  No!  Siehst  du. 
There  iss  a  port — about  half  so  big  as  that  window.  Well. 
And  above  is  the  anchor — on  deck — mit  chain — fathoms 
of  it.  So.  Now  the  chain  overside  and  through  the 
port — and  mit  spare  irons — ." 

He  had  a  rare  gift  of  narrative;  you  could  see  every 
blood  spot  and  hear  the  clank  of  the  chain  as  it  ground 
overboard  with  its  shrieking  freight.  And  then  the  hur- 
ried swabbing  up,  the  tossing  overboard  of  what  frag- 
ments the  chain  left  behind,  the  pink  ripples  about  the 
circling  black  fins — it  was  strong  meat. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  only  natural  that  school  failed 
to  hold  our  interest  in  the  face  of  such  competition. 


I  must  have  been  all  of  twelve  years  old  when  my  father 
bought  me  the  little  dory  around  which  so  many  of  my 
youthful  recollections  cluster.  She  was  a  dory  with  a 
little  triangular  spritsail — he  had  insisted  on  that  despite 
my  ambitions  to  pile  on  all  the  canvas  she  would  stagger 
under,  my  purpose  being  to  sail  rings  around  Captain 
Hawkins  and  his  much  vaunted  Lily  Lou.  My  father 
promptly  set  his  foot  on  that.  I  think  the  first  bitter 
moment  of  my  life  came  when  Captain  Hawkins  slid  past 
us  on  our  maiden  trip,  his  eyes  fixed  dreamily  ahead  and 
his  left  hand  toying  with  a  coiled  rope  in  the  stern  of  the 
Lily.  I  knew  that  this  dumb  show  was  his  way  of  offer- 
ing us  a  tow,  and  I  hated  him  for  it. 

Still,  by  hoisting  our  shirts  in  light  winds  we  managed 
to  get  fairly  good  speed  out  of  the  Shadow,  as  I  chris- 
tened her.  Along  the  water  front  this  was  corrupted  to 
Shad,  because  she  was  all  ribs  and  not  very  roomy  inside. 
We  decked  her  over  forward  and  painted  her  gray  and  lied 
valiantly  about  the  knots  she  logged.  When  we  had  a 
crew  I  was  the  Old  Man  and  Dick  Stowell  filled  the  office 


FLOOD  TIDE  31 

of  first  mate — the  first  mate,  you  know,  does  all  the  knock- 
ing down.  But  usually  we  sailed  alone,  the  two  of  us, 
equal  in  command. 

The  Shadow  is  inseparably  connected  in  my  mind  with 
Buck's  Island.  This  was  one  of  our  first  discoveries,  a 
rocky  little  fragment  of  land  between  the  town  and  Great 
Head,  thickly  wooded  and  separated  from  the  mainland 
by  a  narrow  channel.  We  built  a  hut  there,  against  a 
ledge;  a  rough  hovel  half  filled  by  the  chimney  and  fire- 
place which  we  erected  with  infinite  labor  and  which  re- 
fused to  draw  after  all.  This  was  our  haven  of  refuge 
on  rainy  days  when  the  east  wind  came  blustering  in, 
scattering  silver  rain  with  the  prodigal  hand  of  a  sailor 
just  off  a  three  years'  cruise.  Sometimes,  I  suspect,  we 
sailed  down  in  the  rain  just  for  the  pleasure  of  getting 
dry  again  before  our  own  hearthstone.  On  such  days 
we  built  up  the  fire  until  the  wind  roared  loud  over  the 
chimney,  then  sprawled  before  the  fire  and  built  air  cas- 
tles for  each  other's  admiration. 

This  was  my  one  point  of  superiority  over  Dick.  I 
could  imagine  ten  things  while  he  was  trying  to  fix  one 
vaguely  in  his  mind.  His  mental  processes  ran  to  plain 
black  and  white;  there  were  no  shades  between,  no  half 
truths.  Either  a  thing  was  so  or  it  wasn't.  To  me  there 
seemed  an  infinite  range  of  color,  embracing  all  tints  and 
shades  from  the  deepest  purple  of  romance  to  the  faintest 
shadowing  of  gray  reality. 

Naturally  we  disagreed  on  many  things.  In  fact,  we 
agreed  on  only  one — and  we  never  talked  of  that.  This 
was  the  sea  itself.  Boylike,  we  could  talk  of  concrete 
matters,  but  a  certain  shyness  kept  us  from  discussing 
the  more  abstract  aspects  of  beauty.  It  was  not  shyness 
alone,  for  we  felt  the  beauty  of  the  sea  but  vaguely  and 
lacked  the  vocabulary  to  express  our  thoughts.  I  am 
glad  now  that  we  made  no  attempt  to  reduce  these  shad- 
owy conceptions  to  speech,  for  at  best  we  could  have 
evolved  nothing  but  commonplace  phrases.  Often  Dick 


32  FLOOD  TIDE 

and  I  would  lie  for  hours  on  the  cliff  above  the  hut,  silently 
watching  the  cloud  shadows  drift  over  the  sea,  or  follow- 
ing the  distant  boats  as  they  crawled  slowly  from  one 
lobster  buoy  to  the  next.  We  had  no  ideas  of  eternity  or 
religion  but  the  sea  was  to  us  the  visible  sign  of  both. 

Many  a  summer's  afternoon  we  have  lain  on  the  cliff 
until  the  evening  fog  banks  crept  in  and  threaded  pearls 
on  the  spider  webs.  We  saw  the  fogbanks  first  as  a  long 
white  line  on  the  distant  blue,  creeping  imperceptibly 
shoreward.  They  blotted  out  first  the  base  of  the  light 
house  on  the  distant  head,  then  veiled  the  white  shaft 
and  finally  engulfed  the  black  bulb  of  the  beacon.  Then, 
drifting  slowly  toward  us  along  the  slant  of  the  shore, 
the  bank  brought  headland  after  headland  into  silhouette 
against  its  blank  wall  of  whiteness,  dissolving  woods  and 
cliffs.  And,  before  the  long  white  line  reached  the  Island, 
we  could  hear  the  bellow  of  the  fog  horn  at  the  light,  like 
some  great  sea-monster  yammering  in  helpless  pain  and 
wrath.  The  cliffs  gathered  the  echoes  and  flung  them  back 
until  we  seemed  surrounded  by  a  herd  of  strange  ante- 
diluvian beasts,  calling  and  clamoring  to  each  other  in 
the  dim  whiteness. 

Then  we  would  go  down,  to  cover  the  Shadow  with  the 
tarpaulin,  throw  fresh  logs  on  the  smouldering  fire  and 
talk  far  into  the  night. 

I  remember  old  Caspar  Schrader,  one  night,  telling  us 
of  a  summer  night  long  ago,  when  his  ship  lay  off  Tahiti ; 
the  moonlight  on  the  harbor  brought  back  to  him  the 
heavy  perfume  of  the  land  breeze,  the  long  silver  pathway 
of  the  moon,  the  lacelike  lines  of  palms  against  the  soft, 
dusky  sky,  and  the  hush  and  beauty  of  it  all. 

"Ah,  boys,  id  was  wonder schon,"  he  said,  with  a  catch 
in  his  quavering  old  voice,  "wonder schon!  The  moon-path, 
and  the  low  rumble  of  the  surf  on  the  sand  and  the  soft 
tinkle  of  a  woman's  laugh  across  the  silend  water.  Jim 
and  I  leaned  on  the  rail  and  drank  it  all  in,  until  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  33 

moon  slid  down  behind  the  hills  and  the  last  light  on 
shore  was  oud." 

He  puffed  meditatively  for  a  moment. 

"But  that  was  long,  long  ago,"  he  went  on,  "and 
Jim  has  been  under  the  sea  for  forty — fifty  years  now. 
And  old  Caspar  tells  liddle  boys  stories  by  moonlight, 
when  they  should  be  safe  in  bed." 

And  Dick  and  I  went  home  through  the  silent  streets. 
We  lived  in  the  present,  you  see,  and  didn't  talk  about 
such  things,  while  old  Caspar  lived  in  the  past.  But  we 
felt  them,  just  the  same. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 


I  LOOK  back  on  the  adolescent  Coffin  and  despair  of 
giving  you  any  clear  impression  of  him.  I  myself  see 
him  but  dimly;  his  moods  escape  me.  I  must  have  been 
sloughing  off  my  childhood  at  this  time  and  trying  on  the 
garments  of  maturity;  trying  on  first  one  set  of  clothes 
and  then  another  with  bewildering  rapidity. 

The  old  veils  with  which  I  had  swathed  the  world  in 
mysterious  wonder  were  swept  aside.  I  no  longer  dreamed 
vaguely  of  South  Sea  islands ;  I  no  longer  went  about 
with  strange  names  like  Bab  el  Mandeb  and  Tierra  del 
Fuego,  names  resonant  of  adventure,  ringing  through  the 
back  of  my  head.  It  had  been  a  habit  of  mine  to  visualize 
these  places  through  the  hypnosis  of  repetition,  building 
up  mental  images  of  them.  And  queer  enough  images 
they  were ;  Tierra  del  Fuego  is  still  associated  in  my  mind 
with  volcanoes,  palm  trees  and  camels,  while  Mozambique 
and  Antofagasta  still  bring  images  of  gaberdined  He- 
brews and  drug  stores.  But  now  these  childish  specula- 
tions had  been  outgrown  and  supplanted  by  ambitions. 

I  drifted,  or  rather  swung  violently,  from  one  ambition 
to  another.  For  almost  a  year  I  was  engrossed  in  a  great 
vision  of  being  a  railroad  man ;  time  tables  from  one  end 
of  the  country  to  the  other  filled  my  pockets  and  there 
was  a  great  box  of  railroad  literature  under  my  bod  in 
the  low  roofed  chamber.  This  dream  perished  from  over- 
expansion,  wandering  off  into  steamship  lines  and  bridge 
construction.  Besides,  the  dingy  dustiness  of  our  little 
railroad  station — where  I  would  have  to  start  my  con- 
quest— repelled  me  more  than  a  little.  That  was  not  ro- 
34 


FLOOD  TIDE  35 

mance,  but  work.  I  think  that  you  get  the  distinction. 
But  even  now  the  quadruple  blast  of  a  locomotive  whis- 
tling for  crossings  brings  faint  memories  of  the  days 
when  that  blast  was  the  trumpet  call  of  romance. 

Again,  I  was  inspired  to  become  a  great  painter,  feeling 
the  first  stirrings  of  the  creative  instinct.  I  spent  weeks 
in  following  an  art  class  from  Boston  about  the  rocks 
of  the  Point  and  the  beach  below  the  fish  houses,  worship- 
ing and  questioning.  I  remember  still  the  feverish  disap- 
pointment that  was  mine  when  I  first  tried  to  draw  and 
found  that  I  couldn't.  I  started  a  great  picture  on  one 
of  our  largest  sheets  of  wrapping  paper;  the  subject,  if  I 
remember  correctly,  was  Dick  and  I  standing  off  a  rush  of 
mutineers,  splotches  of  blood  on  the  deck  and  great  green 
seas  and  tattered  rigging  in  the  background.  Youth  al- 
ways runs  to  high  colors  and  lurid  effects.  This  first 
composition  of  mine  never  got  beyond  a  smudged  and 
scratchy  pencil  sketch,  marvelously  out  of  proportion. 
I  remember  crying  over  it  as  I  worked,  although  I  was 
almost  fifteen  at  the  time,  crying  from  sheer  rage  because 
I  could  see  it  all  so  clearly  and  was  utterly  unable  to  set 
it  down.  This  was  my  first  attempt  to  give  a  vision  the 
substance  and  form  of  reality  and  was  a  most  lamentable 
and  piteous  failure.  I  had  seen  Dick  thousands  of  times 
but  when  I  tried  to  draw  his  nose  I  failed  completely.  I 
drew  my  own  profile,  with  the  aid  of  two  mirrors,  and 
stared  in  amazement  at  the  distorted  result.  I  have  found 
the  same  trouble  many  times  since,  this  outrunning  of 
the  hand  by  the  mind,  but  never  since  have  I  experienced 
the  same  keen  and  overwhelming  disappointment  at  my 
failure  to  bring  my  mind  pictures  to  reality. 

But  here  the  other  side  of  my  nature  came  in.  I  wanted 
to  draw;  I  would  draw  whether  I  could  or  not.  I  hung 
on  the  outskirts  of  that  art  class  until  I  was  nicknamed 
"The  Pest."  Finally— in  self  defense,  I  think— I  was 
given  an  hour's  instruction,  told  that  one  started  to  be 
an  artist  by  drawing  simple  things  first,  and  begged  not 


36  FLOOD  TIDE 

to  annoy  them  further.  Whether  I  did  or  not  I  have 
forgotten ;  I  know  that  by  the  end  of  that  summer  I  could 
sketch  after  a  fashion  and  had  rudimentary  ideas  on  the 
handling  of  color.  Then,  queerly  enough,  I  was  ashamed 
of  my  accomplishment.  I  regarded  art  as  effeminate,  and 
not  until  I  had  been  two  years  at  college  did  I  bring  the 
fruits  of  this  ambition  to  light. 

No  doubt  I  had  an  infinity  of  other  ambitions  at  one 
time  or  another.  I  have  faint  memories  of  desiring  to  be 
a  bucko  mate  on  a  whaler;  a  stock  broker;  a  clerk  in 
the  Whitehaven  bank ;  king  of  a  savage  tribe  on  a  remote 
and  indefinite  island;  a  lighthouse  keeper  and  lastly  a 
sheep  tender  in  Australia.  These  ambitions  were  all  alike 
in  that  not  one  of  them  had  a  connection  with  reality. 
And  they  were  all  ambitions,  all  connected  with  the  fu- 
ture. My  mind  seems  to  have  taken  that  bent. 

Interwoven  through  all  these  futures  ran  two  figures 
beside  myself.  There  was  Dick  Stowell,  of  course.  And 
another.  For,  quite  incidentally,  I  had  fallen  in  love. 


Measured  by  standards  of  perfection  I  suppose  that 
Bess  was  far  from  beautiful  at  that  time,  just  a  snub 
nosed  little  girl  with  tight-twisted  braids  down  her  back 
and  bright  china  blue  eyes.  In  fact,  judging  the  matter 
as  calmly  as  I  may,  I  doubt  whether  she  could  have  ever 
been  called  beautiful.  I  have  my  doubts  of  the  potency 
of  mere  physical  beauty  as  an  attractive  force.  Her 
hair  was  yellow,  then,  although  later  it  darkened  through 
shades  of  gold  and  red  to  a  chestnut  full  of  deep  golden 
shadows.  But  even  then  her  brows  and  lashes  were  dark, 
in  contrast  to  her  eyes,  and  she  had  a  trick  of  smiling 
in  a  one  sided  fashion  which  lingers  still  in  my  memory. 

Her  father  was  one  of  the  great  American  army  of 
drifters,  always  seeing  great  possibilities  in  the  future 
and  always  blind  to  the  advantages  at  hand.  He  was 


FLOOD  TIDE  37 

essentially  a  nomad,  eternally  lured  by  the  will  o'  the  wisp 
of  fortune  to  new  fields  whose  sole  beauty  was  the  glamor 
cast  by  distance.  Why  he  came  to  Whitehaven  I  cannot 
imagine;  perhaps  because  it  was  a  new  place  and,  to  his 
mind,  full  of  possibilities.  He  was  much  disliked,  I  imag- 
ine, because  of  the  disparaging  way  he  had  of  contrasting 
Whitehaven  to  other  towns  in  which  he  had  lived.  Even 
in  Whitehaven  he  could  not  be  contented,  but  was  con- 
tinually moving  from  one  house  to  another. 

He  finally  settled  in  a  house  diagonally  across  the 
street  from  ours,  a  most  undesirable  house  with  a  pinched 
back  yard  and  a  shabby  front.  Alden  planned  additions 
which  he  would  make  when  his  ship  came  in,  and  in  time 
persuaded  himself  that  it  was  quite  a  comfortable  dwell- 
ing. Out  of  the  way,  you  know,  and  the  drainage  prob- 
lem was  rather  a  bother,  but  still  not  so  bad — for  a  tem- 
porary place. 

He  was  forever  planning  vast  things  and  invariably 
leaving  them  in  a  half  completed  state.  I  remember  that 
one  night  he  stopped  my  father  and  me  as  we  came  home 
from  the  store  and  asked  my  father's  opinion  on  a  crazy 
contraption  which  he  had  built  in  the  garden  beside  the 
house. 

"What  do  you  think  of  it?"  he  asked,  rather  doubt- 
fully but  still  hopefully. 

My  father  surveyed  it  critically.  "What  is  it?"  he 
asked. 

"A  garden  seat." 

"I  see."  My  father  forebore  criticism.  "Going  to 
paint  it?" 

"Do  you  think  that  would  help?  It  does  look  rather 
unfinished — not  as  I  planned  it,  exactly.  But  then,  a 
garden  seat  ought  to  be  sort  of  rough  and  unfinished." 
Alden  leaned  over  and  drove  another  nail  in  the  midst 
of  an  already  large  cluster.  The  seat  swayed  and  creaked 
as  he  drove  it  home;  he  steadied  it  with  his  knee  and 
swore  heartily  as  he  hammered. 


38  FLOOD  TIDE 

"It's  that  damn  wood,"  he  explained,  "it  won't  cut 
straight — won't  hold  nails — no  good  anyway." 

We  went  on,  my  father  chuckling  to  himself.  I  think 
that  he  enjoyed  Alden  immensely. 

Alden  went  to  Alaska  during  the  rush  of  '98,  and  the 
last  letter  they  had  from  him  was  written  as  he  was  set- 
ting out  to  cross  Chilkoot.  It  was  always  supposed  that 
he  died  there,  although  for  a  long  time  after  that  Eliza- 
beth's mother  talked  of  "when  Alf  comes  home."  Later 
this  became  "if  Alf  comes  home,"  and  later  still  "if  he 
had  come  home."  She  had  imbibed  some  measure  of  his 
witless  optimism,  although  I  have  always  thought  that 
she  must  have  recognized  Alden's  inherent  worthlessness 
and  set  her  foot  down  on  wandering  further  than  White- 
haven. 


At  one  time  Stowell  was  sick  with  measles  or  some 
other  of  the  ailments  which  his  family  shared  unselfishly, 
and  I  fell  from  man's  estate  and  played  house  with  Bess 
in  the  ramshackle  henhouse  which  Dick  and  I  had  fitted  up 
as  our  retreat  from  the  world.  She  criticized  our  domes- 
tic arrangements  unsparingly  and  to  turn  her  attack  I 
told  her  of  our  latest  scheme.  Stowell  and  I  were  going 
cattle  farming  in  the  Argentine,  as  we  had  planned  it — 
one  of  the  few  plans  we  ever  agreed  upon.  Perhaps  we 
agreed  in  this  case  because  it  satisfied  both  my  roman- 
ticism and  Dick's  practically.  Bess  listened,  enthralled, 
egging  me  on  with  questions  and  admiration  until  I  had 
told  her  our  whole  plan,  to  which  Dick  and  I  had  sworn 
eternal  secrecy. 

"My  father  makes  plans  like  that,"  she  said,  when  I 
stopped  for  lack  of  further  imagination,  "but  something 
always  happens.  But  he's  always  going  to  invent  some- 
thing, or  sell  something;  he  never  planned  anything  as 
nice  as  that." 

I  swelled  my  chest  at  the  compliment  and  intimated 


FLOOD  TIDE  89 

that  I  could  imagine  better  things  than  that  with  one 
hand  tied  behind  me. 

"And  then  you'll  make  a  lot  of  money,  and  come  back 
and  we'll  go  to  New  York  to  live,"  she  went  on,  taking 
my  dream  fabric  and  using  it  for  her  own  ends  before 
I  could  explain  that  she  didn't  come  in  on  this  plan. 
"You  will  make  a  lot  of  money,  won't  you,  for  me?" 

I  resisted.  This  was  carrying  the  thing  too  far;  I  had 
imagined  nothing  beyond  lassoing  long-horns  and  riding 
over  the  pampas  on  a  "fleet  mustang."  But  she  smiled 
at  me,  with  one  eyebrow  lifted  in  that  bewitching  fash- 
ion, and  I  grudgingly  admitted  her  to  the  plan,  wonder- 
ing what  Dick  would  have  to  say  about  it.  But  I  still 
resisted  on  a  minor  point;  her  insistence  on  "lots  of 
money"  rather  grated  on  me. 

"But  my  father  says  that  you  can't  get  along  with- 
out it,"  she  remonstrated,  wide-eyed.  "Of  course  you 
want  to  make  money;  that's  what  everybody  wants." 

I  put  my  finger  on  an  inconsistency;  she  admitted  that 
I  was  smarter  than  her  father  and  yet  she  quoted  him 
as  a  final  authority  on  worldly  success.  But  what  is  con- 
sistency to  a  woman? 

"Oh,  I  only  meant  in  making  plans ;  my  father  knows 
a  lot  more  than  you  do,"  she  said  scornfully.  "Besides, 
unless  you  come  home  with  money  I  won't  marry  you." 

I  avowed  my  intention  of  never  marrying — and  then 
she  smiled  at  me  again. 

My  reward  for  forswearing  my  ideals  of  life  were  a 
soft-breathed  sigh  of  satisfaction  and  a  kiss  which  some- 
how or  other  missed  its  mark  and  slid  off  the  end  of  her 
nose  into  space.  After  she  had  gone  I  sat  with  my  head 
in  my  hands  and  considered  what  Dick  would  say  to  this 
radical  change  in  our  plans.  I  needn't  have  worried,  for 
the  next  day  Bess  refused  to  treat  me  as  an  accepted 
lover,  and  when  Dick  came  back  to  school  I  had  resolved 
to  become  a  begging  friar  and  had  shut  women  out  of 
my  life  forever. 


40  FLOOD  TIDE 


I  soon  recovered  from  my  desire  to  take  monastic 
vows,  however,  for  Bess  relented,  after  putting  me  in  my 
place,  and  I  became  her  accepted  though  clandestine 
lover.  We  both  had  a  wholesome  fear  of  the  guying  of 
our  schoolmates  and  our  few  love  passages  were  confined 
to  times  away  from  school.  Our  Saturday  trips  to  the 
Island  lost  much  of  their  savor;  of  course  Bess  couldn't 
go  and  I  couldn't  very  well  talk  to  Dick  about  her. 

She  interfered  most  persistently  in  both  the  practical 
and  the  idealistic  sides  of  my  existence.  My  plans  for 
the  future  gradually  took  on  new  aspects ;  it  became  neces- 
sary to  include  her  in  some  way  or  other  and  that  made 
planning  harder.  She  broke  in  on  the  other  side  of  my 
existence  also,  a  fact  which  caused  me  to  wrangle  with 
Dick  and  dig  up  reasons  for  my  wandering  interests. 

Consumed  with  an  intense  desire  to  be  near  her,  I 
dragged  Dick  off  to  town  meetings  and  sat  through  muzzy 
and  interminable  debates  in  the  hope  of  getting  a  stray 
glance  from  her.  Her  father  had  gone  into  politics  soon 
after  his  arrival  in  town  and  had  become  a  speaker  of  the 
florid,  flag-waving  type;  I  think  that  Mrs.  Alden  derived 
a  good  deal  of  pleasure  from  sitting  in  the  gallery  while 
he  swayed  public  opinion  on  the  floor  beneath.  For  a 
time  my  veering  ambition  swung  in  this  direction;  I  pic- 
tured myself  in  the  halls  of  Congress — no  small  village 
matters  for  me — with  Bess  in  the  gallery  and  my  remarks 
punctuated  by  loud  and  prolonged  applause  and  breath- 
less attention. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  fun  at  town  meetings — too 
much  fun  and  too  little  business,  sometimes.  Almost 
every  one  of  the  self-constituted  leaders  of  opinion  had 
his  special  hobby  and  took  every  conceivable  opportunity 
to  drag  it  into  the  debate  until  the  tap  of  the  Modera- 
tor's gavel  brought  him  down  from  the  heights  of  the 
empyrean.  I  remember  that  the  reading  of  the  article 


FLOOD  TIDE  41 

"To  see  if  the  town  will  appropriate  the  sum  of  two  thou- 
sand dollars  for  street  repairs"  was  always  the  signal  for 
John  Burnham  to  rise  and  tell  of  the  fine  roads  he  had 
seen  in  Holland  and  France  and  move  that  the  word 
"twenty"  be  substituted  for  "two."  It  never  was,  by  the 
way,  until  the  coming  of  the  bicycle  and  later  the  auto- 
mobile made  good  roads  a  necessity  rather  than  a  luxury. 
Then  there  was  old  Mr.  Hichborn,  who  lost  no  chance  to 
spit  on  his  hands  and  wave  the  bloody  shirt;  his  method 
of  debate  was  to  stride  up  and  down  before  the  plat- 
form and  shake  his  fist  in  his  opponents'  faces.  Dick  and 
I  were  present  on  that  glorious  night  when  Joe  Beeker, 
whose  "mainmast  wasn't  stayed  just  so,"  according  to 
Cap'n  Waldron,  rose  in  meeting  and  shouted  "Mr.  Muddy- 
water!"  and  was  cast  forth  after  a  long  and  bloody  con- 
flict. 

In  one  way  or  another  Dick  has  affected  me  in  a  good 
many  ways,  so  much  so  that  I  am  puzzled  sometimes  to 
decide  just  what  part  of  my  actions  are  due  to  myself 
and  what  part  to  his  influence,  but  I  think  that  in  getting 
him  interested  in  the  conduct  of  government  I  have  made 
the  score  nearly  even.  As  the  first  glamor  of  seeing  the 
wheels  grind  out  their  grist  wore  off  he  became  vastly 
critical  and  developed  theories  of  his  own. 

There  were  times,  of  course,  when  I  made  an  arrant 
fool  of  myself,  as  all  lovers  do.  One  case  in  particular 
obtrudes  itself  on  my  memory;  I  give  it  to  you  with  a 
great  deal  of  hesitation,  for  I  am  heartily  ashamed  of 
myself.  The  thing  that  hurts  about  this  particular  mem- 
ory is  not  that  I  behaved  abominably  but  the  fact  that  I 
was  blamed  instead  of  praised  by  the  object  of  my  de- 
votion. 

Through  some  piece  of  deviltry  Bess  had  fallen  out 
with  authority  and  was  condemned  to  be  kept  after  school 
for  a  week.  This  in  itself  was  no  unusual  circumstance; 
I  myself  suffered  that  punishment  with  great  regularity. 
But  on  the  third  day  of  her  incarceration — I  had  been 


42  FLOOD  TIDE 

"kept  after"  that  day,  too — I  passed  the  door  of  her 
school-room  and  heard  her  crying.  To  this  day  I  re- 
member the  wave  of  hot  rebellion  against  all  authority 
which  submerged  my  soul  as  I  peered  through  the  door 
and  saw  Bess  bowed  over  her  desk,  her  shoulders  shaken 
by  sobs.  Her  teacher,  far  from  being  moved  by  her 
manifestation's  of  repentance,  sat  at  her  desk  and  hummed 
a  tune  and  light-heartedly  read  a  yellow  backed  novel.  I 
saw  red  for  a  moment  and  stole  away  filled  with  an  over- 
powering thirst  for  revenge. 

Where  I  got  my  ammunition  I  have  forgotten;  prob- 
ably at  the  store.  That  part  of  the  adventure  has  faded 
from  my  memory;  I  remember  only  that  I  waited  in  the 
early  autumn  dusk  behind  a  carriage  shed  in  Slater's 
Lane — Bess's  teacher  went  home  that  way — with  my  pock- 
ets filled  with  eggs,  shivering  in  the  cold  wind  and  making 
a  futile  effort  to  keep  alive  the  hot  flame  of  rancor.  De- 
spite my  efforts  the  flame  flickered  and  died  down  and 
went  out  entirely  as  her  teacher  and  another  from  a  lower 
grade  approached  along  the  narrow  alley ;  she  had  treated 
me  well  the  year  before,  when  I  had  been  in  her  class, 
and  I  was  astonished  to  find  myself  looking  at  her  with 
affection.  I  crouched  low  behind  the  stone  wall;  they 
were  talking  cheerfully,  unaware  that  a  desperate  man 
lurked  near  them.  But  as  they  passed  the  flame  leaped 
up  again. 

"But  that  Alden  girl!"  floated  back  to  me,  "I  simply 
can't  do  a  thing  with  her !" 

Her  companion  made  commiserating  noises. 

"You  bet  you  can't !"  I  thought  darkly.  "You  let  her 
alone." 

"Sometimes  she's  a  perfect  little  devil,  and  at  other — " 

I  set  my  teeth  and  flung  my  first  egg;  it  sped  between 
them  and  plopped  against  the  side  of  Morgan's  barn; 
I  reached  hastily  for  another,  fumbled,  dropped  it — 
and  bolted  into  the  darkness  of  the  carriage  shed. 
I  heard  startled  exclamations  and  slow  returning  foot- 


FLOOD  TIDE  43 

steps  as  I  burrowed  in  the  dust  under  a  low-bodied  sleigh. 

"Some  one  must  have  thrown  it,"  I  heard ;  then  there 
was  a  silence  during  which  I  felt  millions  of  eyes  boring 
into  the  dimness  of  the  shed. 

"I  see  you;  you'd  better  come  out  here." 

I  quivered,  consoled  myself  with  the  reflection  that  it 
was  manifestly  impossible  for  them  to  see  me  through 
two  inches  of  dusty  plank,  stifled  a  sneeze  and  lay  quiet. 

"It  was  probably  one  of  those  Portuguese  children," 
I  heard  a  low  whisper. 

I  thanked  Heaven  for  the  Portuguese.  There  was  a 
tribe  of  these  black  eyed  youngsters  down  behind  the  fish 
houses,  incorrigible  evaders  of  restraint  and  fervent  haters 
of  everything  connected  with  school. 

"Perhaps,"  came  the  doubtful  answer.  "But  my  dear! 
It  might  have  hit  us !" 

"My  new  coat,  too !" 

"They  may  have  more * 

The  sounds  of  a  hasty  retreat  came  to  me.  They  paused 
and  inspected  the  place  on  the  barn  where  my  hasty  shot 
had  found  its  billet,  then  went  on.  I  crept  out,  looked 
after  them  darkly  and  shook  my  fist — and  then,  at  a 
sudden  thought  which  popped  into  my  mind,  fled  inglor- 
iously.  They  would  return,  accompanied  by  Tibbets  the 
cop;  they  would  surely  take  out  a  warrant  and  have  the 
town  searched  for  the  offender.  I  would  leave  school,  I 
concluded,  as  I  sped  home  by  devious  ways,  stow  away 
on  a  vessel  in  the  harbor  and  thus  avoid  capture. 

But  before  I  left  Whitehaven  forever  I  must  tell  Bess ; 
she  would  know  the  truth  eventually,  of  course,  but  I 
thought  it  better  to  tell  her  myself.  I  was  surprised  to 
find  my  action  strongly  condemned. 

"That  was  horrid!"  was  her  comment.  And  I  had  ex- 
pected praise!  I  had  a  bitter  feeling  that  the  whole 
world  was  against  me. 

"But  don't  you  hate  her?"  I  stumbled. 

"Why  should  I?"    She  seemed  perplexed. 


44  FLOOD  TIDE 

"I  saw  you  crying "  I  hesitated. 

She  flamed  forth  in  wrath.  "That  isn't  your  business 
at  all." 

"But  I  thought "  I  stopped,  warned  by  a  dan- 
gerous look  in  her  eye. 

Then:    "Did  you  hit  her?"  she  asked  eagerly. 

"No  such  ,luck."  I  shoved  my  hands  gloomily  in  my 
pockets,  found  the  remaining  eggs,  and  reflected  that  at 
least  I  shouldn't  starve  to  death  when  I  stowed  away. 

Strangely  enough  she  seemed  disappointed.  I  was 
blamed  for  throwing  the  egg  and  then  blamed  for  not 
throwing  it  straight.  It  was  a  rotten  world.  Perhaps 
later,  when  I  came  back  disguised  with  a  beard,  she  would 
know  better. 

I  started  away  slowly.  Bess  called  me  back,  leaning 
over  the  railing  of  the  porch,  a  faint  white  figure  in  the 
dusk. 

"Promise  me  you'll  never  do  anything  like  that  again," 
she  commanded  in  a  low  voice. 

I  promised,  sulkily  enough.  Nothing  seemed  to  matter 
very  much. 

"Because  if  you  do" —  she  swooped  down  and  some- 
thing warm  and  soft  brushed  my  cheek — "I'll  never  kiss 
you  again." 

A  flutter  of  short  skirts,  a  twinkle  of  slim  legs,  and  the 
door  slammed  behind  her.  She  approved,  she  disap- 
proved ;  she  had  blamed  me — and  then  kissed  me.  I  stood 
gawking  at  the  closed  door  with  my  mouth  open. 

Then  I  went  home,  gloomily  silent  at  one  moment  and 
at  the  next  whistling  and  reconsidering  my  intention  of 
fleeing.  I  was  immensely  puzzled.  We  men  often  go 
home  in  that  state  of  mind. 


I  had  queer  ideas  then — as  I  have  now.     One  of  these 
queer  ideas  was  that  people  were  open  to  reason,  that  if 


FLOOD  TIDE  45 

something  better  than  the  existing  state  of  affairs  were 
shown  them  they  would  at  once  abandon  the  old  and 
welcome  the  new.  This  was  the  first  of  my  disillusion- 
ments.  For  I  evolved  a  plan  for  revolutionizing  White- 
haven's  commercial  life  and  was  laughed  at  for  my  pains. 
I  was  not  the  first  who  had  gone  out  clad  in  fresh  ideas 
from  head  to  foot  and  come  home  in  a  metaphorical  barrel, 
but  that  didn't  help  my  injured  feelings  in  the  slightest. 

How  I  came  to  conceive  this  wild,  chimerical  idea  I 
don't  know;  perhaps  its  seed  was  some  chance  remark 
caught  from  the  group  about  the  stove  in  the  store ;  per- 
haps I  caught  it  from  my  father.  I  must  have  nursed 
my  plan  for  a  long  time  before  I  confided  it  to  my  father 
and  got  his  permission  to  try  it  out;  I  think  that  I  had 
some  lurking  doubts  about  its  practical  application.  It 
was  so  simple  that  surely  some  one  must  have  thought 
of  it  before.  But  as  I  matured  the  idea  I  lost  this  feeling 
of  distrust  and  when  I  finally  told  my  father  of  it  doubt 
had  been  supplanted  by  unqualified  belief. 

This  scheme  of  mine  was  nothing  less  than  a  consolida- 
tion of  the  three  Whitehaven  stores ;  not  a  consolidation, 
exactly,  but  a  plan  for  cooperative  buying.  As  it  was 
then,  each  one  of  the  stores  bought  from  a  different  whole- 
sale house  in  Boston;  our  goods  came  from  Hatherly's, 
the  Patch  Brothers  favored  Durrel  and  Whiting,  and 
Adams  and  Bridges  bought  their  goods  from  some  smaller 
concern,  either  Joslin  or  the  Kingsley  Company,  I  have 
forgotten  which.  As  a  result  of  this  all  three  stores  suf- 
fered. I  know  that  we  very  seldom  split  our  orders  and 
it  was  the  same  with  the  others.  Our  orders  were  never 
large  and  as  a  result  we  obtained  poor  rates  and  almost 
no  discounts  at  all.  Splitting  orders  would  make  it 
worse.  But — and  here  was  the  germ  of  my  plan — increas- 
ing our  orders  would  secure  us  better  terms.  And  we 
couldn't  very  well  increase  our  orders  as  it  was  then;  we 
lacked  the  storage  space,  for  one  thing. 

The  only  solution,  of  course,  was  for  the  three  stores 


46  FLOOD  TIDE 

to  pool  their  buying,  order  large  lots  and  get  the  best 
discounts  possible. 

I  told  my  father  about  it  one  night,  when  I  had  finally 
got  it  all  clearly  fixed  in  my  mind.  My  idea  was  that  all 
three  stores  should  join  in  dealing  with  the  wholesale 
houses,  doing  their  buying  together.  This  would  in  no 
way  interfere  with  competition — I  avoided  that  rock — 
but  it  would  surely  give  us  all  an  advantage  over  the 
wholesale  men. 

"You  see  how  it  would  save  money?"  I  concluded.  "This 
piecemeal  buying  plays  directly  into  their  hands.  You 
can't  split  your  orders  because  then  it  wouldn't  be  worth 
their  time  to  bother — and  Hatherly  might  shut  down 
on  your  line  of  credit.  .  .  .  Don't  you  think  it's  a  good 
scheme?" 

He  considered  for  a  moment,  whistling  softly  to  him- 
self. Finally  he  nodded.  "Yes,  it's  a  mighty  good 
scheme,"  he  admitted.  "But " 

Again  he  considered,  shook  his  head,  smiled  to  himself 
and  then  gave  my  idea  his  unqualified  approval. 

"You're  right,  from  first  to  last,"  he  said.  "It  would 
save  us  money — and  so  it  would  for  Adams  and  Frank 
Patch.  Have  you  seen  them  yet?" 

I  hadn't  considered  the  actual  working  out  of  my  plan 
and  this  direct  question  rather  startled  me. 

"No?"  queried  my  father.  "Well,  I'll  go  in  with  you; 
now  you  go  around  and  rope  them  in." 

I  hesitated.     "See  them  myself?" 

"Sure,"  he  said  in  surprise.  "It's  your  plan,  you  know." 

So  I  started  out,  that  same  night,  to  see  old  Mr.  Adams 
and  Frank  Patch;  started  out  to  revolutionize  commerce 
with  an  idea  and  boundless  enthusiasm.  I  have  laughed 
since  at  the  recollection  of  that  quixotic  excursion,  but 
I  didn't  laugh  then;  I  was  sixteen  and  as  deadly  serious 
as  only  youth  can  be. 

Old  Mr.  Adams  listened  to  me  coldly  as  I  told  him 
my  plan,  looked  at  me  over  his  spectacles,  looked  at  me 


FLOOD  TIDE  47 

under  his  spectacles — and  refused  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  it. 

"You  tell  your  father,"  he  said  severely,  turning  again 
to  his  paper,  "that  if  he  wants  my  help  he  can  come  and 
ask  for  it  himself." 

"But  this  is  my  own  idea,"  I  protested. 

He  emerged  from  behind  his  paper  barricade  and  glared 
at  me.  "He  knows  about  it,  doesn't  he?" 

"I  went  to  him  first,  of  course." 

"Then  he's  back  of  it."  Again  the  barricade  went  up. 
"But  you  can't  catch  John  K.  Adams  with  that  kind  of 
salt;  he's  too  old  a  bird." 

I  tiptoed  out  feeling  that  I  was  lucky  to  escape  so 
easily. 

I  came  off  rather  worse  with  Frank  Patch.  He  misun- 
derstood me  from  the  first,  thought  that  I  was  trying  to 
induce  him  to  abandon  Durrel  and  Whiting,  and  waxed 
purple  and  indignant. 

"No,  sir!"  he  declared.  "I've  known  Durrel  since  he 
warn't  no  taller'n  you  and  hadn't  no  more  sense  neither; 
he's  good  enough  for  me  and  always  will  be." 

I  went  off,  leaving  him  snorting  and  thrashing  about, 
and  sneaked  home  through  back  alleys. 

"Well,  son,  when  do  we  start?"  my  father  asked  cheer- 
fully. 

"I  guess  we  don't  start  at  all."  I  told  him  how  my 
plan  had  been  received.  "They  didn't  understand;  they 
wouldn't  let  me  explain;  they — I  don't  see  anything 
laughable  about  it." 

My  father  straightened  up  and  wiped  his  eyes.  "I'm 
not  laughing  at  you,  nor  at  your  plans ;  they're  both 
all  right.  But  to  try  such  a  thing  on  John  Adams  and 
that  suspicious  old  hard-shell  of  a  Patch!" 

"I  don't  just  see "  I  began,  but  he  waved  me  down. 

"One  time,"  he  said  dreamily,  "when  I  was  a  boy  run- 
ning around  town,  somebody  gave  me  a  knife  for  a  birth- 
day present — knife  with  a  big  shiny  blade,  regular  toad- 


48  FLOOD  TIDE 

sticker.  And  of  course  I  started  out  to  carve  me  a  boat 
— just  as  you  used  to.  But — and  mark  this,  son — in- 
stead of  picking  out  a  nice  soft  piece  of  pine  I  took  a 
big  hunk  of  iron-wood  that  some  one  of  the  Coffins  had 
brought  home  from  the  Indies — beautiful  piece  of  wood 
it  was,  all  crinkly-grained,  but  nothing  was  too  good  for 
the  new  knife.  Well,  I  hacked  away  at  that  wood  for 
nearly  a  week,  dulled  the  knife,  broke  the  point  of  the 
blade,  got  blisters  on  my  hands  and  at  the  end  was  no 
further  along  than  when  I  started.  Guess  I'd  be  hacking 
away  yet  if  my  father  hadn't  come  out  in  the  woodshed 
one  day  while  I  was  sweating  away  over  it.  He  looked 
at  the  wood  and  then  at  my  hands  and  then  laughed  so 
he  had  to  sit  down  on  the  chopping  block.  'Always  suit 
your  tool  to  your  wood,  son,  always  suit  your  tool  to 
your  wood,'  he  told  me.  I've  never  forgotten  it." 

And  neither  have  I. 

Later,  while  I  was  still  in  high  school,  we  added  a  de- 
livery team  to  our  equipment.  This  brought  the  three 
stores  in  closer  competition;  where  previously  they  had 
been  isolated  and  in  a  measure  ignoring  the  existence 
of  the  others  they  were  now  brought  into  direct  conflict. 
Ours  was  the  first  delivery  team  in  town;  although  the 
others  scoffed  at  first  and  then  followed  our  lead  we  had 
the  advantage  of  them. 

Perhaps  Mr.  Patch  and  old  Adams  regretted  that  they 
hadn't  given  my  idea  a  trial,  after  all.  I  know  that  I 
consoled  myself  with  the  thought  that  the  world  seemed 
to  consider  whiskers  and  wisdom  as  synonymous.  Wait 
till  I  sprouted  the  outward  manifestations  of  sagacity 
and  they  would  see. 

And,  waiting,  I  absorbed  wisdom  from  the  "Fire  Wor- 
shipers." This  was  my  father's  name  for  the  tribunal 
about  the  rusty  iron  stove  in  the  store,  a  self  constituted 
court  of  high  decision  on  all  matters.  They  discussed 
everything  with  greater  or  less  wisdom,  conducting  va- 
grant and  interminable  debates  on  politics,  methods  of 


FLOOD  TIDE  49 

rigging,  religion,  genealogy  and  the  comparative  merits  of 
chanties  and  shore  songs.  I  give  you  fragmentary  sam- 
ples. 

"Married  a  Baker  from  up  the  shore  road.  Nephew  to 
old  Sam  Baker  that  owned  the  Arabella.  Worthless  cuss." 

"Summer  people  is  dogfishes.  And  anybody  that  stands 
up  for  them  is  a  dum-head."  (This,  I  recall,  upon  the 
coming  of  Mr.  Bradford,  who  built  the  first  summer  place 
on  the  Point.) 

"I  never  saw  a  whaler  yet  with  as  much  gimp  in  him 
as  a  tame  sheep." 

"  'Put  that  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it,'  says  I.  And 
he  never  let  a  yip  out  of  him  for  the  rest  of  the  voyage." 

Quite  frequently  these  debates  were  punctuated  by  ref- 
erences to  that  chief  character  of  New  England  mythol- 
ogy, the  omniscient  and  elusive  Feller. 

"They'll  skin  you  without  you  nail  your  hide  to  your 
bones,  as  the  Feller  says,"  Cap'n  Billy  Waldron  would 
declaim.  And  Eben  Curtis,  High  Priest  of  the  Established 
Order,  would  counter  by  quoting  the  Feller  to  exactly 
opposite  intent.  Or  Jim  Knowles,  that  reincarnation  of 
Ecclesiastes,  that  quotation  from  Khayyam,  would  jingle 
the  keys  in  his  pocket  mournfully  and  mediate  between 
the  two. 

"Well,  so  far  as  I  can  see  you're  both  right,"  he  would 
say.  "If  the  Republicans  get  in  it'll  be  the  damnation 
ruination  of  the  country,  as  Eben  says ;  and  if  the  Dem- 
ocrats get  their  clutches  on  the  windpipe  of  Prosperity 
there'll  be  women  and  children  crying  for  bread  in  the 
streets  of  Whitehaven,  as  Cap'n  Billy  has  pointed  out. 
We're  going  on  the  rocks,  anyway,  with  nobody  at  the 
helium,  as  the  Feller  says." 

I  must  have  listened  to  many  hundreds  such  arguments 
at  one  time  or  another.  I  remember  the  occasional 
jingle  of  sleigh  bells  outside;  the  glare  of  the  snow,  re- 
flected on  the  beamed  ceiling;  the  dusky  revolving  shad- 
ows of  the  passersby ;  the  eddying  veils  of  tobacco  smoke 


50  FLOOD  TIDE 

over  the  field  of  combat.  But  I  also  remember  that  my 
part  was  solely  that  of  listener.  I  listened,  thought, 
evolved  my  own  ideas,  and  ended  by  keeping  them  to  my- 
self. The  world  was  unappreciative. 


VI 

I  was  eighteen  before  I  discovered  that  others  beside 
myself  planned  futures.  Dick,  the  unimaginative,  merely 
tolerated  my  flights  of  fancy;  Elizabeth  listened  and 
forebore  comment,  although  I  was  secretly  convinced  that 
she  envied  and  admired.  But  as  for  planning  for  herself 
— had  the  wooden  eagle  figurehead  of  the  Mary  Hawes 
flapped  its  wings  and  aspired  to  flight  my  surprise  could 
scarcely  have  been  greater.  Ambition,  in  my  mind,  was 
a  manly  attribute,  something  on  the  line  of  chewing  to- 
bacco and  shaving.  Girls  never  thought  of  such  things. 

It  was  in  the  June  of  my  senior  year  in  school.  I  had 
found  Bess  and  Hilda  Stowell  in  a  little  wind-made  cup 
atop  of  one  of  the  highest  dunes — found  them  acciden- 
tally, of  course.  I  would  have  much  preferred  to  have 
gone  swimming  over  in  the  marsh,  where  the  water  was 
warmer  and  bathing  suits  were  unknown,  but  I  convinced 
myself  that  I  was  getting  rather  old  for  that  sort  of 
thing  and  that  it  was  too  dirty  over  there  and — an  in- 
finite number  of  reasons  beside  the  real  one  that  I  had  seen 
Bess  leave  the  house  dressed  for  swimming  and  knew  that 
I  would  find  her  at  the  beach.  It  is  easy  to  deceive  one- 
self at  eighteen.  I  found  them  and  was  secretly  disap- 
pointed at  finding  Hilda. 

We  lay  at  length  among  the  grasses  on  the  western 
slope  of  the  dune,  peering  over  the  edge  and  basking  in 
the  warm  afternoon  sun ;  that  is,  Bess  and  I  did  the  bask- 
ing and  Hilda  sat  between  us  under  a  sunshade  and  busied 
herself  over  some  mysterious  piece  of  embroidery.  Hilda 
was  one  of  Dick's  sisters ;  she  was  fully  four  years  older 
than  either  Bess  or  myself,  engaged  to  be  married  and 


FLOOD  TIDE  51 

disposed  to  consider  us  very  small  children  indeed.  "Vic- 
torian" scarcely  describes  Hilda — I  dislike  the  term, 
for  at  best  it  is  but  an  importation.  Hilda  really  be- 
longed to  the  times  before  the  war — the  Civil  War — when 
little  girls  wore  pantelettes  and  polite  conversation  was 
confined  to  tatting  and  jam  recipes  instead  of  straying 
to  uncomfortable  subjects  such  as  woman's  place  in  the 
general  scheme  of  things.  I  think  she  was  secretly  shocked 
at  the  amount  of  flesh  displayed  by  my  abbreviated  at- 
tire, for  I  remember  that  she  shifted  the  sunshade  and 
spoke  to  me  from  ambush.  Bess,  with  her  slim  legs  thrust 
out  from  beneath  the  short  skirt  of  her  bathing  suit,  must 
have  been  another  source  of  vexation  to  Hilda.  She  was 
eternally  being  shocked  at  something. 

Hilda  started  the  wrangle,  I  think,  with  an  ill-judged 
comment  on  college.  Dick  and  I  were  going  together  in 
the  fall,  I  because  I  planned  to  be  a  doctor  or  surgeon, 
I've  forgotten  which,  and  Dick  simply  because  he  wanted 
to  go.  .  .  .  Neither  of  us  were  "sent"  to  college ;  we  both 
"went."  Perhaps  the  distinction  as  I  make  it  is  scarcely 
a  clear  one,  but  in  my  mind  college  men  are  divided  in  two 
great  classes — those  who  go  and  those  who  are  sent. 

"I  think  it's  all  foolishness,"  asserted  Hilda.  "It  would 
be  different  if  he  knew  what  he  was  going  to  be,  but  he 
doesn't  know.  Doctors  need  Latin  and — and  all  that; 
so  do  druggists  and  lawyers.  But  he  says  he  isn't  going 
to  be  a  doctor  or  a  lawyer  or  a  druggist." 

"I'm  not  exactly  sure  what  I'll  be,"  I  reminded  her. 

"You're  both  alike,"  affirmed  Hilda  placidly.  Hers  was 
the  kind  of  mind  which  crystallizes  at  an  early  age;  hav- 
ing one's  future  unsettled  was  not  only  negligent  but 
criminal,  in  her  eyes. 

"It's  foolish,"  she  reiterated.  "As  though  you  couldn't 
choose  just  as  well  now!" 

Bess  moved  restlessly  on  the  other  side  of  the  intrud- 
ing sunshade.  "You're  envious,"  she  asserted,  "you'd  like 
to  go  too." 


52  FLOOD  TIDE 

Hilda  was  stung  to  indignant  denial  of  envy. 

"Well,  I  should,"  said  Bess,  "and  I  will,  too." 

"After  you  graduate?"  I  asked,  pricking  up  my  ears 
at  the  news.  Bess  still  had  another  year  in  high  school. 

Bess  was  uncertain.  "Perhaps,"  she  admitted,  "and 
perhaps  not  until  the  year  after  that.  I'm  not  sure." 

She  squirmed  deeper  into  the  sand  and  sent  little  ava- 
lanches down  the  sloping  face  of  the  dune.  This  refer- 
ence to  uncertainty  bordered  on  the  financial  and  we 
avoided  it.  Probably  Mr.  Alden  had  some  grandiose  plan, 
as  usual. 

"I'm  not  fooling,"  she  went  on,  as  Hilda  laughed  in  an 
irritating  fashion.  "I'm  not  going  to  stay  around  here 
after  I  get  through  school.  You  wouldn't  want  to,  would 
you?"  She  appealed  to  me. 

"Not  on  your  life,"  I  answered  warmly.  "But — it's 
different  with  you.  You  see "  I  hesitated. 

"I'm  a  girl  and  ought  to  be  content  to  stay  at  home 
and  play  rag  dolls,"  she  completed  the  sentence  for  me. 
"Well,  I'm  not.  I  want  to  get  away  and  do  things  just 
as  much  as  you  do." 

"But  what  college?"  demanded  the  practical  Hilda. 
"You  don't  mean  Normal  School,  do  you?" 

"And  teach  grubby  little  third  grade  kids  all  my  life?" 
answered  Bess  with  a  sniff  of  disdain.  "I  mean  a  regular 
college — Vassar,  perhaps,  or  Smith  or  Wellesley.  I  don't 
know  which." 

Poor  Bess !  Alden's  last  and  most  magnificent  ven- 
ture, the  Klondike  trip,  came  at  the  time  when  she  would 
have  gone  to  college,  and  when  the  tide  of  fortune  began 
to  show  a  gentle  flow  in  her  mother's  direction  Bess  had 
been  four  years  and  more  out  of  school  and  had  given  up 
her  ambitions.  I  wonder — but  no  matter. 

Then  Hilda  began  that  most  damnable  form  of  torture, 
pinning  a  vaguely  ambitious  mind  down  to  concrete  ex- 
pressions. 

"And  what  would  you  do  after  college?"  she  asked, 


FLOOD  TIDE  53 

greatly  engrossed  in  her  sewing.  "Teach,  perhaps?  I 
forgot;  you  said  that  you  didn't  like  teaching.  What, 
then?" 

"Music?"  she  suggested,  as  Bess  failed  to  answer.  She 
knew  as  well  as  I  that  Bess  hated  music. 

"No,"  Bess  hesitated.     "Something—" 

"Something —  "  encouraged  Hilda,  with  a  hint  of 
mimicry  in  her  voice. 

Bess  sulked  at  being  driven  into  a  corner. 

"You'll  see,"  she  prophesied  darkly. 

"You  might  be  a  nurse,"  suggested  Hilda  helpfully. 

I  entertained  a  fleeting  image  of  Bess,  always  restless, 
being  tied  down  to  some  querulous  old  invalid,  and  in 
spite  of  myself  I  laughed.  "A  swell  nurse  you'd  make," 
I  said,  "and  besides,  you  don't  learn  that  at  college." 

Hilda  went  on  with  her  list.  "There's  stenography — 
or  you  might  try  telephone  operating.  No?  I'm  afraid 
that  a  college  education  wouldn't  help  you  much  in  either 
of  those.  But  what  would  it  help  you  in?" 

Bess  muttered  something  unintelligible — I  think  that 
she  swore.  Certainly  the  circumstances  justified  profan- 
ity. Hilda  was  encouraged  to  add  another  profession, 
thinking  perhaps  to  crown  her  list  of  impossibilities  with 
a  final  absurdity. 

"You  might  go  on  the  stage,"  she  suggested. 

If  she  expected  an  indignant  denial  she  was  greatly 
disappointed. 

"How  did  you  guess?"  asked  Bess,  surprised  and  con- 
fused— just  a  trifle  too  much  surprised  and  confused. 
Under  an  arc  of  the  sunshade  I  saw  her  eyes  raised  to 
Hilda's  in  simulated  amazement. 

Hilda  looked  down  on  her,  half  doubting  and  half 
convinced. 

"You  don't  mean  it,"  she  concluded. 

"But  I  do — really,"  answered  Bess.  She  sat  up,  cross 
legged,  and  chanted  the  refrain  of  one  of  the  popular 
songs  of  that  day ;  something  to  the  effect  that  some- 


54  FLOOD  TIDE 

body  had  better  keep  his  eye  on  tricky  little  Sarah.  She 
swung  to  and  fro  as  she  sang;  Hilda  watched  her,  fasci- 
nated. 

"But  Bess,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  was  only  fooling — ] 
didn't  mean — you  wouldn't  really  be  an  actress,  would 
you?"  There  was  a  note  of  horror  in  her  voice. 

"Uh  huh," 'nodded  Bess,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  distant 
horizon.  "I  think  it  would  be  great;  flowers — applause 
— curtain  calls "  Her  voice  trailed  off  into  visions. 

"Do  you  think  that  I  want  to  stay  in  this  poky  hole 
all  my  life?"  she  added  after  a  moment. 

That  brought  us  both  down  on  her.  In  my  soul  I 
knew  that  Bess  was  right ;  Whitehaven  was  a  "poky  hole." 
But  Hilda  and  I  were  natives  and  Bess  wasn't;  it  was 
all  right  for  a  native  to  criticize  the  town  but  criticism 
from  an  outsider  was  another  matter.  And  in  White- 
haven  all  people  were  outsiders  until  they  had  at  least 
one  generation  in  the  graveyard. 

It  was  an  inconclusive  and  unsatisfactory  wrangle;  we 
all  three  fought  about  different  things.  I  found  trouble 
in  getting  in  a  word  here  and  there  and  the  two  girls 
shifted  ground  and  changed  their  base  of  attack  with 
bewildering  rapidity.  Bess  reverted  to  the  question  of  go- 
ing to  college.  Hilda  made  the  mistake  of  holding  up 
her  own  life  as  a  model  and  almost  cried  as  Bess  skillfully 
took  prop  after  prop  from  under  her  and  left  her  not  a 
leg  to  stand  on.  I  gave  up  my  part  of  the  discussion; 
a  flock  of  shore  birds  came  wheeling  to  the  beach  below, 
following  the  retreating  waves  in  rhythmic  dance  as  I 
watched.  I  searched  about  for  pebbles  to  flip  at  them, 
paying  little  attention  to  the  battle  on  the  other  side  of 
the  sun  shade. 

It  finally  ended,  as  most  feminine  arguments  do,  by 
both  generously  admitting  that  the  other  was  right,  while 
at  the  same  time  each  brought  in  a  maze  of  qualifying 
clauses  which  quite  obscured  the  main  issues. 

They  broke  off,  finally,  and  Bess  and  I  went  down  for 


FLOOD  TIDE  55 

a  final  dip  before  going  home.  I  was  puzzled  more  than 
a  little,  and  as  we  waded  out  dripping  I  asked  a  question 
which  had  perplexed  me. 

"You  didn't  really  mean  that?"  I  asked. 

Bess  bent  over  to  wring  out  her  scanty  skirt. 

"Mean  what?" 

"About  going  on  the  stage." 

"No,  I  didn't,"  she  said  frankly.  "I'd  like  to,  but  I'm 
not  good  looking  enough  and  I  can't  sing.  And  my  folks 
wouldn't  let  me.  But  I  had  to  say  something,  didn't  I?" 

"It  was  a  mean  trick  to  try  to  pin  you  down  like  that," 
I  agreed. 

As  we  went  up  the  beach  together  she  turned  and 
waved  back  at  Hilda.  "I  could  have  scratched  her,"  she 
said  in  a  spiteful  little  burst. 

"I  don't  know  what  I  want  to  do,"  she  said  presently, 
"any  more  than  you  know.  Something — but  what?  If 
I  was  a  boy  father  could  get  me  an  appointment  to  An- 
napolis. That's  out  of  the  question,  of  course.  .  .  .  Be- 
ing a  girl  isn't  much  fun." 


VII 

The  summer  after  our  graduation  from  high  school 
was  spent  in  much  the  same  manner  as  other  summers — 
Dick  away  with  the  fleet  and  I  in  the  store.  The  Mary 
Hawes  came  home  only  once,  and  then  it  was  a  week  day 
and  I  had  only  an  hour  or  two  with  Dick.  I  fitted  up  the 
Shadow  anew,  made  leather  cushions  for  the  cockpit,  and 
Bess  and  I  went  sailing  along  the  coast  and  about  the 
harbor  nearly  every  Sunday.  A  sleepy,  quiet  summer, 
and  yet  one  of  the  happiest  of  my  remembrances. 

Dick  came  home  a  few  days  before  college  opened.  It 
was  at  his  suggestion,  I  think,  that  we  sailed  down  to  the 
Island  on  the  day  before  our  departure  for  college.  It 
was  our  last  trip  to  Buck's  Island,  although  neither  of 
us  thought  of  it  in  that  light  as  we  set  out. 


56  FLOOD  TIDE 

It  was  one  of  those  cool,  clear  September  days,  when 
brown  cheeked  Summer  decks  herself  in  goldenrod  and 
makes  the  most  of  her  last  few  days,  warned  by  the  first 
flaming  maple  leaves  that  autumn  is  near.  We  sailed  in 
the  early  morning;  there  was  scarcely  enough  wind  to 
fill  the  Shadow's  sails,  not  enough  to  ripple  the  long 
smooth  swells.  Dick  was  at  the  helm — a  tribute  to  his 
superior  seamanship — and  he  steered  inshore  as  close  as 
he  dared,  following  each  dip  and  undulation  of  the  coast 
instead  of  standing  straight  across  for  the  Island  as  we 
usually  did.  As  we  slid  along  in  the  crisp  sunshine  each 
point  and  inlet  brought  back  some  memory ;  in  a  way  our 
boyhood  passed  in  review  before  us  as  we  went  along. 

Here  we  had  landed  to  pick  blueberries,  and  fled  in 
terror  from  what  we  believed  to  be  a  bear  but  which  proved 
to  be  one  of  Haskell's  sheep,  browsing  in  the  underbrush. 
A  glimpse  of  white  birch  trunks  recalled  that  here  we  had 
stripped  the  bark  for  shingling  the  roof  of  the  cabin. 
Behind  that  bluff  we  had  snared  rabbits,  and  high  on  that 
cliff  was  a  shallow  cave  whence  we  had  routed  an  entirely 
imaginary  band  of  pirates  with  great  glory  to  ourselves. 
We  grew  tenderly  reminiscent  over  all  these  boyhood 
memories,  looking  back  on  them  through  the  mists  of  an- 
tiquity— some  of  them  were  almost  six  or  eight  years 
distant — and  almost  wished  ourselves  boys  again.  Dick 
was  nineteen  and  I  was  some  two  months  younger. 

It  was  noon  when  we  arrived  at  the  Island  and  sailed 
into  the  little  harbor.  We  landed,  brought  our  grub 
ashore,  dislodged  the  rabbits  which  had  preempted  our 
hut,  and  kindled  a  rousing  fire  in  the  fireplace.  After 
dinner  we  climbed  the  cliffs  above  the  cabin  and  sat  in  our 
old  nook  under  the  pine  tree,  with  the  sea  and  the  rock- 
fringed  coast  at  our  feet.  Three  barges,  riding  high  and 
southward  bound,  drew  slowly  along  the  taut  line  of  the 
horizon  in  the  wake  of  a  tug ;  we  watched  them  and  talked 
intermittently  of  many  things  and  finally  fell  silent  in 
the  drowsy  afternoon  hush,  with  only  the  low  swish  of  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  57 

waves  and  the  shrill  cries  of  the  wheeling  gulls  to  break 
our  thoughts. 

Dick  broke  the  golden  charm. 

"Great,  isn't  it?  Sea — sunshine — we're  going  to  miss 
this,  Jack." 

He  yawned,  rolled  over  and  sat  up. 

"Gee,  I  feel  wise,  and  all-powerful  and — and  hungry. 
Run  down  and  get  me  a  piece  of  that  pie  we  had  left  over, 
will  you?" 

"Pie?"  I  said  drowsily.  "I  hate  the  word,  as  I  hate 
work,  all  exercise  and  thee.  Get  it  yourself." 

We  grappled  and  scuffled  about  in  a  fierce  combat  on 
the  pine  needles.  Dick  finally  sat  on  my  chest  and  pro- 
ceeded to  give  me  a  "barber  shave,"  which  is*  a  method 
of  rubbing  the  short  hairs  at  the  back  of  the  neck  in  a 
manner  calculated  to  provoke  tears. 

"Going  to  get  that  pie?"  he  paused  to  ask. 

"I  will— and  eat  it,  too." 

We  raced  down  to  the  hut,  devoured  the  remnants  of 
the  pie  and  then  went  swimming  in  the  cove.  All  after- 
noon we  swam  about,  dove  off  the  rocks  and  built  sand 
forts  on  the  tiny  beach.  We  laid  vast  systems  of  water- 
works, using  the  hollow  stems  of  kelp  for  pipes,  dug  har- 
bors and  canals,  and  in  general  acted  as  though  we  were 
only  boys,  instead  of  men  ready  to  enter  college.  The 
afternoon  wore  on  and  the  evening  chill  was  in  the  &ir  as 
we  dressed  and  went  up  the  winding  path  to  the  cabin  and 
supper.  We  ate  a  silent  meal  and  packed  our  stuff  for 
the  trip  home. 

"Young  Claflin  asked  me  for  the  key  last  week,"  I  said 
as  we  took  a  last  look  around.  "He  and  the  other  kids 
came  down  in  that  old  dory  they  patched  up.  Shall  I 
give  it  to  him?" 

"They'll  break  in  if  you  don't,  I  suppose,"  answered 
Dick.  "And  yet " 

He  stopped.    Perhaps  he  felt  as  I  did ;  we  all  welcome 


58  FLOOD  TIDE 

new  things  and  yet  dislike  to  abandon  the  old.     Our  eyes 
met ;  the  same  thought  was  in  both  our  minds. 

"And  they'd  have  the  fun  of  building  another,"  he  said 
soberly.  "That  was  half  the  fun,  anyway." 

"Go  ahead,"  I  said,  and  went  down  the  path  to  the 
Shadow,  our  pots  and  pans  jangling  in  a  blanket  on  my 
back.  I  stowed  them  in  the  bow,  pushed  off  until  the 
Shadow  was  nearly  afloat,  and  sat  down  to  wait  for  Dick. 
Five  minutes — ten  minutes,  and  he  came  silently  across 
the  narrow  beach.  He  nodded  in  answer  to  my  question- 
ing look,  then  shoved  off  and  sprang  into  the  stern.  We 
poled  out  of  the  little  harbor,  caught  the  evening  breeze 
and  stood  off  in  the  twilight  for  home. 

From  the  seaward  side  the  amphitheater  where  the  cabin 
stood  was  hidden ;  the  Island  loomed  a  black,  pine-topped 
mass  against  the  faint  silver-gray  of  the  sea.  Then  as 
we  watched,  there  was  a  pulse  of  red  against  the  velvet 
dusk  of  the  eastern  sky.  Blackness  again,  more  intense  for 
the  contrast.  A  second  throb  of  red,  then  a  steady  mount- 
ing orange  glow  which  streamed  silently  upward  through 
the  evening  calm.  The  pines  stood  silhouetted  against  the 
glare,  flat  figures  of  black;  a  faint  wavering  path  of  red 
spread  out  over  the  ripples  toward  us,  our  sail  took  on  a 
faint  morning  glow  of  rose  as  the  flames  spread  and 
mounted.  We  watched  in  silence  as  the  Shadow  plowed 
along,  the  little  waves  in  our  wake  shimmering  faintly  for 
a  moment  and  then  sliding  off,  lost  in  blackness.  It 
streamed  brighter  and  brighter;  there  was  a  faint,  muf- 
fled crash  of  falling  timbers ;  the  sparks  streamed  upward 
in  fright  and  the  light  faded  to  a  dim  gleam  among  the 
pines.  It  wavered,  faded,  and  vanished  in  the  darkness. 
We  turned  and  sailed  on  toward  the  lights  of  town,  build- 
ing out  long  beckoning  spars  across  the  water. 
We  left  the  next  day. 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 


I  SKIP  the  first  two  years  of  my  college  life.  Few  things 
worth  recording  happened.  I  did  barely  enough  work  to 
pass  my  courses,  made  spasmodic  efforts  at  reformation 
and  failed  to  reform.  I  fell  in  with  a  happy-go-lucky 
crowd  and  drifted  with  them,  having  a  good  time  and 
doing  the  minimum  of  work. 

That  seems  to  cover  the  first  year,  at  least.  Neither 
Dick  nor  I  permanently  undermined  our  constitutions 
by  overwork.  I  flunked  math  and  Dick  flunked  Caesar. 
Dick  passed  math  with  an  astonishingly  high  rating  and 
I  made  the  sharks'  division  in  Horace  and  stayed  there. 
We  were  each  a  little  mystified  at  the  other's  failure  and 
at  our  own  successes.  In  the  second  year  Stowell  branched 
off  into  higher  mathematics  and  embryo  engineering  work ; 
I  concentrated  on  Romance  languages,  because  they  came 
easily  to  me  and  required  the  least  concentration.  Simple 
quadratics  are  cryptograms  to  Dick  now;  my  Latin  has 
gone  like  the  sparkle  of  the  fans  Bandusia,  splendidior 
ritro. 

The  most  important  event  of  the  two  years  seems  some- 
thing only  slightly  connected  with  college.  I  had  an 
affair  with  a  town  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  soggy  fat  man 
who  kept  a  barber  shop  in  which  he  moped  and  snored 
grossly  and  drank  bitters  from  a  bottle  labeled  "Dand- 
ruff Cure."  Despite  this  parental  handicap  I  was  hard 
hit  by  Connie;  why,  I  don't  know,  unless  because  I  was 
at  the  age  when  one  is  either  hard  hit  or  not  hit  at  all. 
Certainly  Connie  was  attractive,  with  a  certain  plump 
prettiness  and  a  way  of  saying  "Hello!"  dividing  the 
59 


60  FLOOD  TIDE 

word  into  three  syllables,  which  lingers  still  in  my  mem- 
ory. We  went  to  dances  together;  my  bill  at  the  livery 
stable  became  a  thing  of  magnificent  proportions ;  I  lost 
what  little  rank  I  had  in  my  classes. 

And  in  the  end  I  was  thrown  over  flat  for  another 
swain.  The  light  of  the  world  was  extinguished.  Water 
fights  with  their  accompaniment  of  sloppiness  and  jani- 
torial wrath  had  lost  their  savor.  There  was  no  pleasure 
now  in  midnight  feeds  at  Scottie's ;  it  was  no  longer  devil- 
ish and  sad-doggish  to  cross  the  campus,  dim  and  shad- 
owy as  a  roofless  Greek  temple  in  the  moonlight,  waking 
the  echoes  and  sluggard  upperclassmen  with  barber  shop 
renditions  of  the  salubrity  of  existence  in  our  "castle, 
castle,  castle  on  the  re-he-he-ver  Rhine !" 

I  gave  up  everything  and  took  to  wearing  flannel  shirts 
and  shaving  only  twice  a  week. 

I  can  afford  to  smile  now,  but  at  the  time  my  over- 
throw was  material  for  dark  and  dismal  tragedy. 
Strangely  enough,  Elizabeth  failed  to  enter  into  the  affair 
at  all.  My  feelings  toward  her  were  unchanged.  I  went 
with  Connie  because  others  of  my  crowd  went  with  town 
girls ;  because  squiring  her  to  dances  proved  me  a  man 
among  men;  because  it  appealed  to  me  as  the  romantic 
thing  to  do.  And  I  see  now  that  it  was  not  my  rejection 
that  hurt,  but  the  realization — added  by  a  timely  notice 
from  the  Dean's  office — that  I  had  made  a  fool  of  myself. 
I  remade  that  discovery  many  times  in  my  later  life,  but 
this  first  realization  hurt  worst  of  all.  .  .  . 

I  had  a  wretched  time  of  it  for  the  rest  of  that  year. 
So  far  my  college  career  had  been  an  utter  and  abject 
failure;  I  was  a  man  apart,  without  friends.  Stowell  had 
his  own  crowd  by  this  time,  a  circle  of  budding  engineers 
who  talked  a  strange  jargon  of  logarithms  and  elevations 
which  was  beyond  my  comprehension.  I  had  cut  loose 
from  my  own  crowd  and  found  myself  poor  company. 
I  became  supersensitive  and  spent  long  hours  in  the  li- 
brary, absorbing  endless  books. 


FLOOD  TIDE  61 

I  must  have  exaggerated  immensely,  for  I  left  that  June 
with  the  firm  intention  of  never  returning.  But  during 
that  summer,  in  the  saner  air  of  Whitehaven,  I  regained 
my  perspective  and  began  to  look  forward  to  September 
and  college  again.  I  came  to  see  that  this  affair  was  not 
an  end  in  itself,  but  the  lopping  off  of  a  branch  which 
had  threatened  to  overshadow  and  crowd  out  wood  of 
sounder  growth.  I  made  up  my  mind  to  go  back  and  do 
some  real  work;  two  years  wasn't  much,  but  it  was  at 
least  a  chance  to  redeem  myself.  During  my  self-inflicted 
isolation  of  the  spring  I  had  added  greatly  to  my  knowl- 
edge of  Romance  literature — more  for  lack  of  other  em- 
ployment than  with  any  idea  of  serious  study.  I  fell  in 
with  Estey,  the  white  haired,  precisely  spoken  head  of 
the  French  department ;  he  ignored  the  fact  of  my  blasted 
career  and  treated  me  like  a  white  man.  I  was  properly 
grateful  and  began  to  speculate  on  futures  connected  with 
the  teaching  of  modern  languages. 


During  that  summer  the  electric  cars  invaded  White- 
haven.  In  spring  vacation  Dick  had  lugged  a  rod  in  the 
surveying  gang,  just  for  the  practice.  He  performed 
to  the  admiration  of  all  beholders — save  myself,  who 
could  see  no  fun  in  working  for  fun — and  that  summer 
McNally,  head  of  construction,  gave  him  authority  over 
a  transit.  Later,  the  survey  finished,  he  had  plenary 
powers  over  a  gang  of  Italians,  building  out  a  fill  across 
the  marsh.  I  helped  him  by  giving  him  some  Italian 
phrases  calculated  to  inspire  industry.  I  saw  very  little 
of  him;  he  was  busy  and  so  was  I.  My  father  took  his 
first  vacation  in  years,  went  two  voyages  in  the  Mary 
Hawes  and  left  me  in  full  charge  of  the  store,  with  Joe 
Grigsby  to  help  me. 

Dick  came  into  the  store  one  evening,  during  the  dull 
hour  just  before  closing  time. 


62  FLOOD  TIDE 

"How's  the  work?"  he  asked,  perching  on  the  counter 
and  swinging  his  legs. 

"Hard  labor,  Dick,"  I  answered,  only  too  glad  to  be 
interrupted  in  my  checking  up  of  accounts.  "I  had  no 
idea  the  old  gent  worked  so  hard.  Guess  he  needed  a 
vacation.  Is  tfie  fill  coming  along  all  right?" 

Bess  and  I  had  driven  out  the  week  before  to  inspect 
his  work,  and  Dick  had  boasted  of  the  fact  that  his  gang 
was  far  ahead  of  the  crew  who  were  building  out  from 
the  further  side  of  the  marsh. 

He  nodded  in  answer  to  my  question.  "We'll  make 
connections  in  a  week,"  he  said  without  interest. 

"Still  ahead?" 

"Still  ahead.  But  they  have  to  haul  their  gravel  fur- 
ther, you  know." 

"You'll  have  time  for  a  week's  lay-off,  then,  before  we 
go  back." 

"Urn." 

"I'll  be  glad  to  get  back,"  I  went  on  awkwardly.  "I'm 
going  to  plug  this  year.  I've  been  a  good  deal  of  a  fool 
so  far;  now  I'm  going  to  settle  down  and  work." 

"So  am  I,"  he  agreed. 

"You  always  have."  There  was  no  need  of  stating  the 
contrast  between  us.  "I've  reserved  that  corner  room  in 
Franklin  House  this  year.  It's  quiet — no  freshmen 
around — and  we  could  fix  it  up  fairly  well.  Suit  you?" 

"That's  a  good  room,"  he  assented  absently.  "Perhaps 
— I  might  as  well  tell  you  before  you  make  any  more  plans. 
I'm  not  going  back." 

His  statement  took  me  completely  by  surprise.  One 
of  the  things  which  had  influenced  my  decision  to  return 
had  been  the  fact  that  I  would  not  go  back  alone.  I  was 
unable  to  imagine  college  without  Dick. 

"On  the  level?"  I  managed  to  ask. 

He  nodded. 

"I  thought  you  were  getting  along  all  right,"  I  expos- 


FLOOD  TIDE  63 

tulated.  "It  isn't  a  matter  of  money,  is  it?  Or  have 
your  folks " 

"Convinced  me  that  I'm  wasting  my  time?"  he  laughed. 
"Hardly;  I  think  that  I've  convinced  them  about  that. 
And  I'm  not  quitting,  exactly ;  I'm  transferring  to  Tech." 

"And  how  long  have  you  had  this  under  your  hat?"  I 
asked  reproachfully. 

"Ever  since  last  winter,"  he  admitted.  "Old  Dude  Colby 
advised  me  to  transfer  if  I  could  get  the  credits  fixed 
up.  I  fixed  it.  I  lose  half  a  year,  but  I  can  take  straight 
engineering  now,  without  any  of  the  frills.  But  I  wasn't 
sure  until  last  week — and  there  was  no  use  in  telling  you 
and  then  having  to  back  down.  You  see?" 

I  saw.  I  had  felt  precisely  the  same  about  my  half 
formed  resolutions  of  abandoning  college.  "But  what's 
the  idea?"  I  inquired.  "I  know  that  you'll  be  able  to  get 
more  and  better  technical  stuff,  but  what  are  you  going 
to  plug  for?  Chemistry?  Physics?  Civil  engineering?" 

"Mining  engineering,"  he  answered,  with  the  air  of 
one  mentioning  sacred  things.  "It's  a  great  profession. 
McNally — the  boss,  you  know — is  an  M.  E.  and  I've  been 
talking  it  up  with  him  all  summer.  It's  the  only  thing  for 
me,  I'm  sure  of  that." 

I  voiced  a  legitimate  objection.  "Have  you  ever  seen 
a  mine,  Dick?  Aren't  you  going  it  blind — letting  the  ro- 
mantic side  of  mining  influence  you  too  much?" 

He  looked  at  me  with  a  trace  of  amusement.  I  wonder 
if  he  realized  then  how  much  of  my  own  life  was  founded 
upon  the  purely  romantic  aspect  of  things? 

"There's  not  much  romance  about  it,"  he  answered. 
"From  what  I  know  it's  hard  work  and  lots  of  it.  Ro- 
mance doesn't  appeal  to  me  as  much  as — to  some  other 
people.  I'm  not  built  that  way.  The  harder  and  solider 
a  thing  is  the  better  I  like  it.  I  want  to  get  down  to  bed 
rock.  And  mining  is  bed  rock." 

He  broke  off,  a  little  ashamed  of  his  self  analysis,  "And 


64  FLOOD  TIDE 

you  never  heard  of  a  mining  engineer  dying  poor,  did 
you?" 

"I  never  heard  of  one  dying  at  all,  Dick;  perhaps 
they're  so  busy  they  forget  to  die."  I  felt  hurt,  not  at 
parting  from  Dick,  but  that  he  was  going  somewhere  that 
I  couldn't  go.  I  realized  that  this  meant  the  definite  di- 
vergence of  our  ways.  For  the  first  time  I  had  a  sense  of 
limitation.  "But  it's  as  good  a  way  as  any  of  making  a 
living,  I  suppose." 

"Yes,"  he  agreed  vaguely.  "I  suppose  I'll  see  you  be- 
fore you  go  back — and  during  vacations.  You  can  find 
time  to  drive  out  and  see  me,  anyway.  Come  out  and 
hear  me  swear  in  Dago — I've  improved  a  lot  lately.  But 
in  case  you  don't  have  time " 

He  slid  down  and  offered  me  his  hand.  We  both  had 
a  dread  of  slopping  over  into  sentiment;  we  shook  hands 
stiffly,  in  absurd  formality,  and  he  went  out. 

I  saw  him  only  once  between  this  announcement  and 
my  department  for  college,  and  then  only  at  a  distance. 
I  was  going  into  Boston  on  some  errand  or  other;  just 
outside  town  the  railroad  ran  parallel  to  the  new  construc- 
tion, at  a  distance  of  about  a  hundred  yards.  As  I  looked 
out  of  the  window  I  saw  Dick.  He  and  the  other  boss 
stood  at  the  ends  of  their  respective  tongues  of  earth — 
the  two  ends  of  the  fill  were  nearly  touching  now — and 
bombarded  each  other  with  clods  of  earth,  their  two 
gangs  grinning  from  a  safe  distance.  As  I  watched,  a 
well  aimed  shot  of  Dick's  took  the  other  man  in  the  chest ; 
he  waved  his  arms  in  triumph  and  then  turned  on  his 
gang  with  mock  ferocity.  As  I  craned  my  neck  backward 
I  saw  them  fall  to  shoveling  furiously. 

That  was  the  last  time  I  saw  Dick  for  over  four  years. 
There  were  letters  between  us,  to  be  sure,  but  as  time  went 
on  they  came  at  longer  and  longer  intervals.  It  was  sur- 
prising how  little  we  had  in  common.  Dick  left  Tech 
without  graduating;  I  remember  receiving  a  post  card 
from  him  announcing  that  he  had  "got  aboard"  with  a 


FLOOD  TIDE  65 

South  American  mining  syndicate.  I  sent  him  a  long 
letter  in  reply,  thought  of  him  frequently  for  almost  a 
week,  envied  him,  and  then  almost  forgot  him.  By  the 
time  he  reappeared  I  had  forgotten  him. 


ra 

These  two  events,  my  separation  from  Dick  and  this 
affair  with  Connie,  overshadow  all  my  memories  of  col- 
lege. All  else  seems  subordinate,  although  no  doubt  more 
momentous  things  happened  during  the  four  years.  But 
the  identity  of  these  more  momentous  things  .  .  .  that 
is  precisely  what  troubles  me.  They  are  not  to  be  identi- 
fied. I  recall  a  fragment  of  a  lecture  by  Daddy  Bowles, 
occupant  of  the  Beardsley  Chair  of  English  Literature. 

He  lifted  his  voice  in  lamentation.  "There  is  no  litera- 
ture dealing  with  college  men,"  he  wailed.  "We  have 
stories  infinite  of  shop  girls,  cowboys,  sailors,  brokers, 
farm  hands — but,  beyond  a  few  ephemeral  and  distorted 
tales  of  athletics  and  keg  parties,  nothing  of  the  college 
man.  Why?  Why?" 

"I'll  bite;  why?"  floated  an  irreverent  voice  from  the 
rear  seats,  and  the  resultant  search  for  the  offender  has 
erased  Daddy's  solution  from  my  mind — if,  indeed,  he 
offered  one.  He  had  a  singular  facility  for  propounding 
the  unanswerable,  as  his  quiz  papers  testified. 

I  offer  my  own  solution.  The  true  story  of  a  man's 
four  years  in  college  is  a  story  of  intellectual  shifting 
and  rearranging.  There  is  no  plot,  no  continuity  in  it; 
its  coherence  is  that  of  a  sand  dune.  To  attempt  analysis 
is  to  bring  the  entire  structure  down  about  your  ears  in 
confusion.  My  own  college  story  is  that  of  this  unstable 
intellectual  changing,  of  fleeting  ideas  caught  in  passing, 
of  slow  accretions  from  vagrant  winds.  I  gained  and 
lost,  gave  and  withheld,  retained  what  pleased  me  and 
molded  it  to  my  own  ends.  I  changed,  as  every  man 
changes  during  this  period,  whether  in  college  or  not. 


66  FLOOD  TIDE 

But  after  many  years  it 'is  difficult  to  recall  this  process 
of  losing  or  gaining,  save  to  remember  and  appreciate 
that  it  took  place.  Memory  is  a  palimpsest;  I  catch 
occasional  glimpses  and  flashes  of  the  old  text  here  and 
there,  but  these  fragments  are  overwritten  and  obscured 
by  what  has  since  occurred.  Once,  when  the  record  was 
clear  and  unsmudged  by  distance,  Langdon  and  Graves 
and  I  did  a  fair  job  of  analyzing.  But  I  give  you  that  in 
its  proper  place.  .  .  . 

Chief  figure  of  what  confused  memories  I  have  is  Jerry 
Graves,  wandering  along  with  his  Hibernian  expanse  of 
prehensile  upper  lip,  his  half  smile  and  half  frown  and 
his  eternal  readiness  to  wage  verbal  warfare  over  any- 
thing that  might  present  itself.  He  took  Dick's  place 
with  me,  mainly  because  I  had  had  the  foresight  to  engage 
a  room  and  he,  in  his  characteristically  negligent  fashion, 
had  found  himself  without  a  roof  to  cover  him.  During 
the  first  week  of  our  joint  occupancy  of  the  corner  room 
in  old  Franklin  House  some  mad,  mad  wag  painted  a 
death's  head  on  the  door;  it  is  there  yet,  for  all  I  know, 
although  Coffin  and  Graves  have  been  safe  at  last  in  the 
wide,  wide  world  for  these  last  twenty  years. 

I  remember  Graves  chiefly  for  his  remarkable  ability 
and  his  no  less  remarkable  indolence.  He  was  a  born 
critic,  destructive  and  yet  constructive,  brilliant  when  he 
wished  to  be  brilliant  and  most  astoundingly  dull  when  a 
subject  failed  to  interest  him.  He  was,  and  is  yet,  one 
of  the  infrequent  few  who  cheerfully  abandon  minor  ad- 
vantages for  the  privilege  of  criticizing  the  world  at  large 
and  his  associates  in  particular. 

It  was  through  Graves  that  during  those  two  years 
our  room  became  the  center  of  attraction  for  most  of  the 
thinking  men  of  that  college  generation.  Not  all  of  them, 
I  know,  for  there  were  other  groups  about  college  at  the 
same  time — a  crowd  of  sharks  who  had  riotous  evenings 
over  the  Greek  tragedies;  the  college  politicians,  vastly 
mysterious  over  elections  and  the  unbalance  of  power  be- 


FLOOD  TIDE  67 

tween  fraternities ;  the  athletic  crowd,  closely  allied  to  the 
politicians,  and  a  vast  Milky  Way  of  other  groups,  all 
founded  on  mutual  interests  and  all  more  or  less  inter- 
woven. Our  own  connection,  as  a  group,  was  a  tenuous 
one;  our  interests  overlapped  and  passed  the  boundaries 
of  the  narrow  circle  of  college  life  with  which  these  others 
were  concerned.  We  took  pride  in  being  different.  We 
failed  to  worship  the  past,  to  the  scandal  of  the  purely 
intellectuals ;  we  had  a  proper  sense  of  the  relative  unim- 
portance of  the  present,  an  attitude  which  antagonized 
the  seekers  after  collegiate  honors.  As  nearly  as  I  can 
define  it,  we  were  all  more  or  less  radicals — and  yet  in  no 
way  to  be  confused  with  present-day  collegiate  radicals 
with  ideas  on  Socialism,  prohibition,  labor  problems,  and, 
as  I  write,  pacifism  and  other  subjects  connected  with 
war.  We  were  simply  radical.  We  were  against  things; 
we  were  blatantly  against  things.  We  talked,  we  debated, 
we  criticized — all  in  faithful  imitation  of  the  pinwheel 
which  makes  a  great  splutter  but  not  much  progress. 

I  remember  our  wrangles  as  staccato  outbursts  rather 
than  as  connected  and  logical  expositions ;  a  completed 
sentence  was  a  rarity  and  adherence  to  a  direct  line  of 
thought  an  unknown  thing.  Contact  with  one  another 
always  provoked  intermittent  electrical  discharges  of 
flashing  and  incompleted  ideas ;  heat  lightning,  playing 
harmlessly  among  the  clouds  from  pipes  and  cigarettes 
which  always  swirled  about  the  room — harmless  discharges 
and  sometimes  not  very  illuminating.  We  all  wanted  to 
talk,  none  came  with  the  purpose  of  listening.  We  were 
all  very  sincere  and  very  earnest  and  very  ignorant.  The 
real  world  was  as  unreal  to  us  as  an  architect's  elevation. 
All  the  lines  were  there  and  a  great  deal  of  the  detail,  but 
of  the  structure  and  internal  arrangement,  of  the  cunning 
balance  of  interwoven  thrust  and  strain  we  were  entirely 
ignorant.  We  were  outside  the  building  and  could  only 
speculate  on  these  things. 

But  it  was  fun  and  very  good  for  us. 


68  FLOOD  TIDE 

Many  men  came  and  went  and  a  few  came  and  stayed, 
Graves,  of  course,  was  always  there  with  his  methodical 
flashes  of  industry  and  his  eternal  readiness  to  argue.  A 
fairly  frequent  visitor  was  Ted  Langdon,  editor  of  the 
college  paper.  He  came  primarily  to  listen,  but  was  al- 
ways drawn  into  the  argument.  When  beaten  he  would 
embody  his  views  in  an  editorial  and  give  us  no  chance  of 
rebuttal.  It  was  very  irritating  and  unfair.  There  were 
others  who  partook  of  the  character  of  charter  members ; 
Cameron,  a  voluble  and  prodigal  Scotchman  with  a  ten- 
dency to  mistake  noise  for  logic ;  a  lanky  man  from  Ver- 
mont and  a  tubby  man  from  Illinois,  both  budding  author- 
ities on  law ;  a  man  named  Joy  who  wrote  neat  little  essays 
and  sirupy  poems  for  the  moribund  Lit.  and  talked  like 
a  longshoreman.  They  drifted  in  and  out,  became  more 
or  less  identified  with  other  groups,  and  ultimately  re- 
turned to  dispute  and  scrap  with  Graves. 

I  was  a  fair  sample  of  the  lot,  I  imagine.  For  a  time 
I  hitched  up  with  the  intellectual  faction,  the  culturists ; 
there  was  a  spasmodic  interest  among  them  that  year  in 
the  connection  between  late  Latin  and  Proven9al.  Then 
I  discovered  that  my  length  of  leg  promised  a  future  in 
the  line  of  high  jumping,  and  for  a  time  I  hung  on  the 
fringes  of  the  athletic  crowd.  Again,  I  revived  my  inter- 
est in  painting,  did  some  decorative  stuff  for  the  funny 
sheet,  illustrated  jokes  when  some  one  supplied  the  joke, 
and  was  ultimately  elected  to  the  board.  But  these  were 
side  issues;  my  main  interest,  I  can  see  now,  was  the  in- 
cendiary radicalism  and  futurism  which  flickered  and 
flared  and  guttered  with  Graves  ever  in  the  center  of  the 
conflagration. 


As  I  think  of  these  undergraduate  "beefs"  I  get  more  of 
the  physical  than  the  mental  atmosphere.  I  have  an  im- 
pression of  men  sprawling  about,  generally  avoiding  the 
center  of  the  room ;  there  were  usually  a  good  half  dozen 


FLOOD  TIDE  69 

occupants  of  the  two  couches  which  filled  the  darker  angle 
of  the  room,  the  first  comers  reclining  at  ease  and  speak- 
ing mysteriously  from  behind  the  backs  of  those  who  came 
later.  I  have  an  impression  of  Graves,  dividing  his  time 
between  discussion  and  ineffectual  efforts  at  concentra- 
tion on  a  battered  typewriter.  Sometimes  there  was  a 
subsidiary  group  before  the  fireplace;  more  frequently 
the  fireplace  was  cold  and  cheerless,  due  to  Cameron's 
prodigality  with  our  fuel.  I  remember  the  gray  and  black 
figures  of  the  huntsmen  on  the  wall  paper — a  relic  of  the 
days  when  Franklin  House  had  been  the  residence  of  old 
Professor  Franklin  and  this  room  his  study — forever 
caracolling  gayly  behind  the  shifting  blue  stratae  of  smoke. 
They  had  been  silent  and  unheeding  witnesses  of  genera- 
tions of  arguments  such  as  ours  since  first  they  set  out 
in  quest  of  the  bench-legged  stag,  just  beyond  their  view 
around  the  corner  of  the  mantel;  I  imagine  that  they 
have  heard  the  same  subjects  discussed  in  the  same  ways 
many  times  since.  Their  quest,  with  its  silent  view-halloos 
and  ceaseless  riding  through  impossible  gray  forests,  was 
as  endless  and  eternal  as  ours. 

The  physical  side  of  it  is  clear  enough,  impressed  on 
my  memory  by  frequent  repetition,  but  the  mental  side  of 
it  seems  to  elude  me.  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  was  much 
transitory  talk  of  athletics.  The  same  is  true  of  ohms 
and  hexameters  and  gerunds.  I  remember  hot  discussions 
on  Darwinism  as  opposed  to  Christianity;  I  recall  a 
wrangle  on  the  possibility  of  inter-stellar  communication 
which  raged  during  one  examination  period  and  left  the 
stars  as  distant  as  before;  a  man  from  West  Virginia, 
with  first  hand  information  on  feuds,  inspired  us  to  debate 
on  the  comparative  sanctity  of  life  and  property;  I  re- 
member that  Langdon  struck  out  on  a  weird  line  of 
thought  and  surprised  us  all — until  some  one  else  read 
Butler's  Erewhon.  I  remember  wordy  arguments  on 
Bryanism — how  the  old  subjects  do  persist! 

Only   one   of   these   wrangles    stands    out   beyond   the 


70  FLOOD  TIDE 

others.  At  the  time  it  was  but  one  discussion  of  many; 
I  remember  it  now  because  it  was,  in  a  way,  prophetic. 
We  talked  of  efficiency — and  this,  mind  you,  was  in  the  dim 
depths  of  the  middle  '90's.  Truly  there  is  no  new  thing 
under  the  sun. 

Graves  started  it,  as  ever.  He  always  tossed  out  the 
bones  over  which  we  fought. 

"There's  a  devil  of  a  lot  of  waste  in  the  world,"  he 
said  reflectively. 

"Always  has  been,"  said  some  morose  body. 

"No  reason  why  there  always  should  be,"  offered  Came- 
ron with  superhuman  wisdom. 

"The  inertia  of  the  old  order "  began  some  hidden 

orator. 

"Rot!"  broke  in  Graves.  "That's  outside  the  case. 
We've  been  going  so  fast  that  we're  bound  to  waste. 
Everything  of  late  has  been  big — the  bigger  the  better. 
And  big  things  always  run  to  waste." 

"For  example?" 

"Everywhere,"  said  Graves,  magnificently  vague,  "rail- 
roads, government,  foundries —  "  he  made  an  all-inclu- 
sive gesture  and  knocked  a  book  to  the  floor.  He  stooped 
and  recovered  it.  "Yes,  even  in  the  book  store.  Here's  old 
Nick  Machiavelli's  "Prince."  I  ordered  it  three  months 
ago  and  then  forgot  it.  And  yesterday  old  Hadley  dug 
it  out  from  the  back  shelves  and  shoved  it  off  on  me.  I've 
forgotten  what  I  wanted  it  for.  There's  waste  for  you. 
And  that's  only  a  sample.  Same  everywhere.  What  we 
need  is  efficiency." 

"What's  that?" 

"Being  efficient — using  your  brains  to  save  your  heels. 
What  we  need  is  a  coop  store — of  the  people,  by  the  people 
and  for  the  people.  It's  a  fact  that  the  average  European 
family  lives  on  what  the  American  family  wastes." 

"So  that's  it,"  commented  the  irreverent  Cameron. 
"I've  always  wondered  where  the  garbage  scows  go  after 
they  pass  the  Narrows." 


FLOOD  TIDE  71 

Graves  ignored  the  interruption.  "There's  too  much 
waste,  too  much  running  around  in  circles.  We  need 
short  cuts,  simplification,  cutting  out  of  details." 

Langdon  removed  his  pipe.  "How?"  he  asked,  and  im- 
mediately sealed  the  aperture  again. 

"Short  cuts,  I  said,"  repeated  Graves.  "For  example, 
in  getting  this  book  old  Hadley  had  to  write  to  a  New 
York  house.  They  sent  an  ambassador  to  the  publishers. 
The  publishers  shipped  an  envoy  to  Italy  to  look  up 
Machiavelli's  descendants  and  get  their  opinion  on  the 
matter.  And  finally  I  got  the  book.  That  may  not  have 
been  the  exact  procedure,  but  they  had  time  enough  to  go 
through  some  such  rigmarole.  The  same  with  everything; 
middlemen  until  you  can't  stir  without  falling  over  one 
and  paying  him  for  being  in  the  way.  They  should  be 
Done  Away  With — absolutely." 

"How?"  exploded  Langdon  again. 

"Oh,  damn!"  said  Graves,  pinned  down.  "Buy  direct 
— cut  corners — simplify.  Don't  ask  me  for  details." 

"Organization,"  volunteered  some  lucid  soul. 

"It  doesn't  work,"  I  interjected.  My  own  painful  ex- 
perience along  cooperative  lines  recurred  to  me. 

"Et  tu,  Brute?"  Graves  contemplated  me  sadly,  then, 
with  a  covert  grin,  clacked  away  again  on  his  typewriter. 
To  start  a  discussion  and  then  abandon  it  to  its  fate  was 
a  favorite  trick  of  his. 

"Why  can't  it  be  done?"  queried  Langdon,  persistent 
seeker  after  light. 

"I've  tried  it,"  I  said,  and  told  my  experience  in  trying 
to  convert  Frank  Patch  and  old  Mr.  Adams  to  the  doc- 
trines of  cooperation.  As  I  remember  it,  I  elaborated 
my  theories  to  some  length,  adding  frills  and  details  to 
enlarge  the  plan  beyond  a  mere  country  grocery  affair. 
I  proved  that  Graves's  idea  was  well  founded — in  theory 
— and  then  pulled  the  props  from  under  his  structure  by 
reciting  my  own  failure. 

"But  why?"  persisted  Langdon. 


72  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Because  these  old  duffers  were  hide-bound." 

"Not  at  all.  You  attacked  it  in  the  wrong  manner. 

Now  my  idea "  and  Langdon  preempted  my  plan, 

stripped  it  to  a  bare  framework  and  skillfully  built  it  up 
anew.  He  quoted  authorities — mostly  Russians  and  Ger- 
mans with  elusive  names — and  cited  statistics  which  I  sus- 
pect were  manufactured  for  the  occasion.  Men  offered 
suggestions;  I  myself  discovered  new  possibilities  and 
aided  in  collaboration.  Out  of  the  riot  of  deep  voices 
and  shrill  voices,  each  trying  to  ride  down  the  others 
and  make  itself  heard — and  with  Cameron  conducting  a 
Delphic  chorus  of  derision  from  the  couch  corner — we 
evolved  a  most  wonderful  creation.  The  exact  details 
escape  me,  but  it  is  my  impression  that  the  foundation  of 
the  structure  was  a  test  case  and  a  Supreme  Court  deci- 
sion. The  Supreme  Court,  next  t.o  ourselves,  was  the 
most  enlightened  body  in  the  country.  There  was  to  be 
a  Central  Purchasing  Bureau,  I  remember;  a  Board  of 
Statistics;  a  body  having  something  to  do  with  raw  ma- 
terials; a  distribution  committee — we  would,  of  course, 
take  over  the  railroads — and  an  infinite  number  of  minor 
boards  and  committees  regulating  production  and  distri- 
bution. As  we  planned,  I  wrested  the  speakership  from 
Langdon  and  was  very  dictatorial.  It  was  all  very  beauti- 
ful— and  all  very  absurd,  as  we  knew. 

"And  if  any  one  objects?"  inquired  Graves  sardoni- 
cally, as  we  added  the  last  pinnacles  and  minarets  to  our 
structure. 

"There'll  be  objection,  surely,"  admitted  Langdon. 
"Great  objections  from  the  hoi-polloi,  politicians,  specu- 
lators and  conservatives  in  general.  But  shrieking  blue 
bloody  murder  is  their  long  suit.  Which  class  are  you 
in?" 

"Far  be  it,"  responded  Graves.  "But  I'm  afraid  that 
your  reforms  are  a  bit  too  sweeping,  too  sudden.  Not 
that  they're  not  needed,  for  they  are.  But  how  will  you 
do  all  this?" 


FLOOD  TIDE  73 

"It'll  take  time,"   said  some  one. 

"A  small  matter  of  a  thousand  years,"  scoffed  Graves. 
"I  suggested  efficiency.  And  you  idiots  take  the  bit  in 
your  teeth  and  run  wild  on  reform.  Efficiency,  as  I  see 
it,  includes  the  gagging  and  binding  of  those  who  let  their 
mouths  run  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  drip  and  gur- 
gle. In  my  opinion  you're  a  lot  of  unregenerate  Social- 
ists. The  present  plan  is  all  right,  considering  the  limi- 
tation of  being  the  product  of  human  beings.  All  it  needs 
is  refining,  not  a  new  plan.  And  especially  not  such  a 
half  baked  one  as  you've  cooked  up." 

"What  is  the  present  plan?"  challenged  Cameron. 

Graves  was  silent. 
-"Is  there  one?" 

"There  isn't,"  said  Graves.  "But  has  there  ever  been? 
And  will  there  ever  be?  We've  lived  in  a  planned  life  so 
far,  with  everything  mapped  out  for  us ;  such  and  such 
courses  to  take  with  so  much  credit  for  each.  That  isn't 
the  world  by  a  long  shot.  Some  of  us  are  going  to  plug 
our  heads  off  and  get  flunked  after  all;  others  will  take 
snap  courses  and  make  Phi  Beta  Kappa  without  trying. 
There's  no  race  of  supermen  to  plan  and  order  the  world 
at  large — except,  of  course,  Coffin  and  Langdon." 

"Education,"  offered  a  voice  from  the  corner. 

Graves  shook  his  head.  "We've  spent  eighteen  years, 
on  the  average,  in  getting  an  education.  And  are  we 
supermen?  I  think  not." 

"I'm  hanged  if  you  are,  anyway,"  said  Cameron  bru- 
tally. 


Whether  the  talk  drifted  off  into  educational  matters 
or  ended  in  a  rough-house  between  Graves  and  Cameron 
I  can't  remember.  I  think  it  very  likely  that  we  ulti- 
mately wound  up  in  a  free  for  all  debate  on  religion.  All 
subjects  seemed  ultimately  to  lead  to  that  end.  Graves 


74  FLOOD  TIDE 

always  succeeded  in  switching  the  discussion  to  that  inex- 
haustible field ;  "Just  as  in  the  case  of  religion,"  he  would 
say,  and  then  draw  his  analogy.  Trouble  always  followed. 
Graves  still  remains  the  only  theological  crank  of  my  ac- 
quaintances; extremes  of  religion  or  of  irreligion  are 
rare  in  these  flays. 

His  extreme  was  that  of  irreligion.  Graves  posed  as 
a  blatant  atheist,  but  to  this  day  I'm  not  sure  how  far 
he  was  really  convinced  in  that  direction.  I  know  that 
at  one  time  or  another  he  impressed  some  part  of  his  per- 
sonal convictions  on  all  of  us. 

"See  here,"  I  remember  him  saying,  in  answer  to  some 
particularly  steadfast  clinger  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers, 
"see  here,  religion  isn't  a  matter  of  inheritance.  It  isn't 
belief  in  the  gates  of  pearl  or  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
It's  nothing  more  than  right  living  according  to  the  best 
standards  known.  Belief  and  protestation  of  belief  don't 
enter  into  religion  as  I  see  it;  it's  a  matter  of  works  and 
not  words.  Put  your  trust  in  a  superior  being  if  you 
want  to ;  if  you  can,  you're  lucky.  I  can't.  I'd  be  happier 
if  I  could  and  I  know  it.  But  I  can't  and  that  settles  it." 

"I  think  that  I'm  a  better  man  for  believing,"  asserted 
his  antagonist. 

"I  don't  doubt  it,"  answered  Graves,  "and  I  think  that 
I'm  a  better  man  for  not  believing.  Your  way  is  yours 
and  mine  is  mine.  There's  no  absolute  standard  of  right 
living,  any  more  than  there's  an  absolute  standard  of 
gold  value.  It  fluctuates,  you  know ;  the  sort  of  life  that 
would  carry  you  to  Heaven  six  centuries  ago  would  get 
you  life  imprisonment  now.  A  man  who  sins  while  know- 
ing better  isn't  the  same  as  a  sinner  who  sins  thinking  it 
the  right  thing  to  do.  And  avoidance  of  sin  is  nothing 
more  than  a  prophylactic  measure,  anyway." 

"You  admit  that  the  standards  of  Christianity  are  the 
best,"  accused  the  believer. 

"Yes — the  standards.  But  I  regard  them  as  the  sum 
of  human  wisdom,  not  the  edicts  of  a  superior  being.  And 


FLOOD  TIDE  75 

I'm  none  the  worse  for  it — save  that  if  I  believed  blindly 
I'd  not  be  wasting  my  time  enlightening  you.  By  the  way, 
have  you  any  doubts?" 

"In  what?" 

"That  God  spake  unto  Moses  and  all  that.  You  be- 
lieve implicitly?" 

"Yes." 

"Not  a  small  doubt — 'way  down  deep?" 

The  steadfast  one  shook  his  head  obstinately. 

"It's  my  opinion  that  you're  a  liar,"  concluded  Graves. 
"If  you're  telling  the  truth  your  education  has  been 
wasted.  The  man  who  hasn't  a  doubt  about  anything 
isn't  educated  and  angels  will  never  perch  on  his  pillow." 

And  Graves  added  another  lifelong  enemy  to  his  list. 

This  subject  of  religion  gave  me  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
before  I  realized  that  there  was  no  absolute  solution. 
Graves  robbed  me  of  whatever  belief  I  had  held  in  the  in- 
fallibility of  Holy  Writ  and  not  until  I  had  threshed  out 
some  sort  of  solution  for  myself  did  I  let  the  matter  drop. 
Finally  I  fell  back  on  the  religion  of  my  father — that  the 
soul  is  a  manifestation  of  energy  and  therefore  imperish- 
able, and  that  Christianity — Graves  had  a  hand  here — is 
as  good  a  rule  for  right  living  as  the  mind  of  man  can 
conceive.  That  was  my  doctrine  then;  it  is  now.  I  feel 
that  there  is  something  beyond  this  life;  I  hope  there  is. 
What  it  is  I  cannot  define,  nor  have  I  any  desire  to  in- 
quire into  it  too  narrowly.  With  Omar,  I  believe  that  "I 
myself  am  Heaven  and  Hell" ;  let  others  build  what  visions 
of  the  after-life  they  please — for  they  are  only  visions, 
after  all — I  envy  them  their  belief  but  cannot  share  it. 

I  wonder  if  college  men  to-day  talk  of  these  things?  I 
think  they  do ;  I  know  that  although  we  thought  that  "we 
were  the  first  that  ever  burst  into  that  silent  sea"  of  dis- 
covery, the  men  who  had  gone  before  us  had  gone  through 
this  process  of  shifting  and  rearranging  of  ideas  and  I 
suppose  the  same  holds  true  of  the  men  who  came  after 
us.  Methods  of  education  may  change,  but  the  men  who 


76  FLOOD  TIDE 

were  in  their  early  twenties  then  had  the  same  doubts  and 
hopes  as  the  college  men  of  to-day. 

Some  men  never  did  and  never  would  think  of  these 
things,  but  in  general  our  attitude  toward  them  was  the 
attitude  of  the  majority  of  the  men  about  us,  each  one  of 
us  discovering  and  solving  after  his  own  fashion.  One 
manifestation  of  this  unrest  was  an  irreligious  revival 
which  occurred  that  spring;  a  series  of  impromptu  Sal- 
vation Army  meetings,  consisting  chiefly  of  red  fire, 
pounding  on  a  decrepit  bass  drum  and  the  relation  of  bur- 
lesque conversions  to  the  "worship  of  the  Lamb."  .  .  . 
"Three  years  ago  I  was  in  the  gutter;  now  look  at  me." 
You  know  the  sort.  .  .  .  Perhaps  it  was  nothing  more 
than  a  means  of  blowing  off  steam,  but  I  think  that  the 
roots  of  it  went  deeper  than  that. 


VI 

During  all  this  time  I  was  digging  deeper  and  deeper 
into  modern  languages,  that  part  of  the  curriculum  which 
came  easiest  to  me.  Somewhere  along  the  road  the  idea 
of  teaching  as  a  profession  came  to  me.  Just  what  led 
to  this  crystallization  of  my  ambitions  I  don't  know ;  per- 
haps it  was  my  growing  intimacy  with  the  professors  and 
instructors  in  that  department,  for  one  of  my  great  dis- 
coveries during  these  last  two  years  had  been  that  a  man 
could  teach  and  still  be  human.  I  became  especially  inti- 
mate with  Estey,  the  head  of  the  French  department,  and 
his  tales  of  student  days  in  Paris  and  Italy  fired  my  im- 
agination and  made  me  want  to  fall  in  with  this  life. 

"You  have  a  good  foundation  in  grammar,  Coffin,"  he 
said  to  me  one  night,  "a  very  good  foundation.  A  sum- 
mer in  France,  with  a  trip  to  Italy — Florence,  I'd  recom- 
mend, for  they  speak  the  purest  there — and  you  will  be 
better  fitted  to  teach  than  most  of  the  instructors  we 
have  here.  A  year  abroad  would  be  better,  but  you  could 
get  a  fair  idea  of  pronunciation  and  idiom  in  three 


FLOOD  TIDE  77 

months.  Then  in  succeeding  summers — unless  you  marry, 
and  you  won't  have  money  enough  for  that — you  can  go 
back  and  get  more  of  it.  But  don't  live  in  hotels,  as  you 
value  your  soul;  get  down  among  the  peasant  classes." 

He  chuckled  and  wagged  his  head  reminiscently. 

"I  landed  in  Florence — from  Pisa — with  three  lire.  I 
sold  matches  in  the  street  and  lived  on  polenta  until  my 
cheque  came  through  from  home.  And  then,  d'you  know, 
I  didn't  cash  it  for  a  week.  Fact.  I  liked  living  that 
way." 

That  was  romance !  Being  broke  at  home  wasn't  much 
fun,  as  I  already  knew,  but  to  be  penniless  four  thousand 
miles  from  home,  to  sell  matches  and  live  on  polenta — ah ! 
That  was  indeed  something  to  look  forward  to. 

During  senior  year  I  made  up  my  mind  to  follow  Es- 
tey's  advice;  to  spend  a  summer  abroad  and  then  come 
back  to  teach.  I  had  come  to  like  this  academic  atmos- 
phere and  I  wanted  to  stay  in  it;  it  was  leisurely,  but 
constructive,  outside  the  main  current  of  affairs,  perhaps, 
but  all  the  better  for  this  isolation.  I  can  remember  no 
positive  distaste  on  my  part  for  business  and  life  outside 
of  college;  my  choice  was  no  more  a  choice  than  had  been 
my  interest  in  languages.  It  was  again  a  matter  of  drift- 
ing into  the  easiest  and  most  convenient  course,  rather 
than  a  deliberate  choice.  The  question  of  money  failed  to 
enter  into  my  decision  to  the  slightest  degree.  I  realized 
that  teaching  was  a  somewhat  monastic  form  of  getting  a 
livelihood,  but  it  was  a  pleasant  one. 

I  planned  a  pleasant  future  for  myself,  as  beautiful  as 
one  of  those  summer  clouds  we  call  "thunder-heads,"  tow- 
ering into  the  sunlight  above  the  dark  and  the  rain  below; 
a  life  above  the  storms  in  the  clean  atmosphere  of  the  upper 
regions — and  a  life  as  unsubstantial  as  one  of  these  same 
solid-seeming  clouds.  It  needs  but  a  slight  shift  in  the 
wind  to  tear  dreams  of  this  sort  to  wisps  and  tatters  of 
vapor  and  scatter  them  forever. 


78  FLOOD  TIDE 


For  some  unfathomable  reason  there  was  an  interim  of 
a  week  between  the  last  examination  and  Commencement ; 
usually  a  week  of  deadly  dullness,  of  undergrads  leaving 
for  vacation  and  graduates  dribbling  in  for  reunions  and 
a  general  confusion  and  breaking  up  of  the  ordered  course 
of  the  college  year.  The  seniors  either  spent  the  week 
in  dismal  packing  and  disposing  of  the  accumulated  rub- 
bish of  four  years  or  alternated  between  drunkenness  and 
repentance.  We  were  wiser.  Cameron's  father  had  a 
camp  on  a  bit  of  a  lake  up  north  and  at  his  invitation  a 
dozen  or  so  of  us  went  up  there,  to  return  the  night  before 
Commencement.  It  was  an  interlude  between  undergradu- 
ate life  and  real  life  and  was  immensely  good  for  us. 

For  a  week  we  fished  and  tramped  through  the  woods 
and  came  back  to  camp  to  feast  royally  on  brook  trout 
and  play  penny  ante  far  into  the  night.  Such  minor  mat- 
ters as  examinations  and  books  and  lectures  fell  away  into 
the  dim  and  distant  past;  we  were  through  with  such 
things  forever  and  did  our  best  to  forget  them.  Cameron 
took  advantage  of  his  position  as  host  and  started  a  post- 
mortem on  a  final  paper  in  Greek  and  was  ducked  in  the 
lake,  with  only  one  dissenting  vote  beside  his  own.  Lang- 
don  held  forth  for  burning  him  at  the  stake. 

Langdon  and  I  went  fishing  together  on  the  last  day 
of  our  stay,  setting  out  after  breakfast  and  covering  more 
miles  than  I  like  to  think  of  before  turning  back.  Then 
Langdon  insisted  on  fishing  down  stream,  instead  of  strik- 
ing out  across  country  as  any  sensible  mortal  would.  As 
a  result  it  was  after  sunset  when  we  dragged  into  camp. 

We  found  Graves  alone,  the  rest  of  the  crowd  having 
gone  down  the  lake  to  the  village.  Good  old  Graves !  He 
had  mixed  a  great  bowl  of  flapjack  batter,  with  an  un- 
limited supply  of  maple  sirup  and  coffee  on  the  side;  we 
kept  him  over  the  stove  until  the  spoon  scraped  the  bot- 
tom of  the  bowl  and  we  found  difficulty  in  drawing  a  full 


FLOOD  TIDE  79 

breath.  We  wrangled  about  the  number  of  fish  we  had 
caught,  as  we  stuffed  ourselves ;  Langdon,  silly  fool,  made 
plans  to  go  back  in  the  morning  and  have  a  final  try  for 
a  big  fellow  he  had  missed.  Finally  we  threw  the  .dishes 
in  the  half  hogshead  of  water  under  the  sink  and  went  out 
on  the  porch  overhanging  the  lake. 

After  the  preliminary  scrapings  of  chairs  and  demands 
for  tobacco  and  flaring  of  matches,  we  were  silent.  It 
was  quite  dark  by  this  time;  just  enough  light  remained 
to  pick  out  the  dim  outlines  of  the  hills  to  the  west  of 
the  lake.  Through  a  gap  between  two  jagged  hills  was 
a  more  distant  and  higher  peak,  standing  out  in  faint 
purple  against  their  green-black  duskiness.  The  waves, 
barely  audible  on  the  beach  below  us,  came  from  an  im- 
mense void;  space  had  ceased  to  exist.  There  were  no 
visible  shore  b'nes  to  the  lake;  we  sat  on  the  edge  of  un- 
fathomable space. 

Graves  grunted  inarticulately  in  appreciation;  we 
smoked  thoughtfully  in  reply.  Somewhere  along  the  lake 
shore  a  frog  cleared  his  throat  tentatively  and  was  evi- 
dently satisfied  that  he  was  in  good  voice;  a  booming 
"Darrnmk!"  floated  out  and  came  back  faintly  from  the 
invisible  further  shore.  Again  the  frog  announced  his 
inebriety  and  for  the  third  time.  As  though  at  the  promp- 
ter's call  there  came  the  faint  sound  of  voices  from  down 
the  lake,  a  mere  whisper  at  first,  with  only  a  bare  thread 
of  melody  creeping  in  now  and  then.  It  was  the  crowd 
paddling  back  from  the  village.  A  murmuring  medley  of 
echoes  beat  in  on  us,  flung  back  by  the  great  pines  across 
the  lake  and  the  bare  hillsides  above.  Bit  by  bit  the 
echoes  grew  as  the  main  volume  of  sound  approached;  we 
made  out  scattering  fragments  of  the  tune;  something 
about  Clementina  and  a  forty-niner  and  a  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  the  lady's  charms.  Langdon  hummed  a  wordless 
tenor,  lost  the  air,  puffed  furiously  at  his  pipe  and  re- 
lapsed into  silence  again. 

"Young  Indians !"  drawled  Graves  softly. 


80  FLOOD  TIDE 

Langdon  grunted  in  acquiescence.  A  match  flared  as 
Graves  relit  his  pipe;  we  saw  his  face  outlined  against 
the  silken  dusk  for  a  moment  and  heard  the  complaining 
squeak  of  his  chair  as  he  settled  back. 

"I  wonder  .   .  ."  he  said  thoughtfully,  and  stopped. 

"Wonder  what?" 

"Nothing.  I  was  just  wondering  whether  Tommy  and 
Moose  and  Peachpie  and  the  rest  of  the  crowd  out  there 
will  feel  like  singing  a  year  from  now." 

"Why  shouldn't  they?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  was  just  wondering."  He  smoked 
silently.  "I  think  we're  all  wondering  just  a  little,"  he 
went  on.  "Just  what  are  we  going  up  against?  We  have 
— what  was  it  that  musty  old  duffer  said  in  chapel  last 
Sunday? — 'these  young  men  who  have  achieved  the  stand- 
ard, O  Lord,'  or  words  to  that  effect.  But  what  stand- 
ard? I  suppose  we're  finished  products,  all  but  the  label. 
So  much  Latin  and  such  a  percentage  of  science;  a  dash 
of  history,  a  trace  of  economics — and  about  fifty  per 
cent  of  undetermined  material.  Is  there  a  standard? 
That's  what  puzzles  me.  And  if  there  is  one,  what  is  it?" 

"Certified  oyster  shuckers,"  I  suggested. 

He  paused  a  moment  and  then  disentangled  my  mean- 
ing. "  'The  world  is  mine  oyster,'  you  mean?  But  is  it? 
And  will  we  find  pearls  or  open  oysters  for  others  all  our 
lives?" 

"That's  up  to  us." 

"I  suppose  so,"  Graves  assented  gloomily.  "But  there 
ought  to  be  some  certainty  about  a  standard.  We  ought 
to  be  sure." 

"That's  part  of  the  game,"  observed  Langdon,  "and 
the  best  part.  I  know  that  I'll  get  a  sheepskin  to-morrow, 
unless  they  rake  up  some  of  my  past  misdeeds,  and  the 
next  day  I  know  that  I'm  going  home.  After  that,  I 
haven't  a  plan  in  the  world.  I  have  a  vague  idea  that 
some  day  I'll  get  married  and  some  other  day  I'll 
die;  those  things  seem  to  happen  to  most  people.  I 


FLOOD  TIDE  81 

may  even  have  to  work  for  a  living.     I'm  not  worrying." 

"I  envy  you,"  said  Graves. 

"I  envy  you"  retorted  Langdon.  "You  two  are  stand- 
ardized and  I'm  not.  You  may  not  know  it,  but  you  are. 
You  have  ideals ;  you  look  ahead ;  you  have  provided  for 
the  future.  I  haven't.  Coffin  is  going  abroad,  to  drink 
absinthe  under  pink  and  white  awnings  along  the  Boul' 
Mich'  and  try  his  voice  in  the  Blue  Grotto  at  Capri ;  he'll 
come  back  with  baggy  pants  and  a  mosquito  netting  neck- 
tie to  teach  freshmen  their  avoirs  and  etres.  He  knows 
what  he's  going  to  be  at  thirty  and  at  forty  and  at  sixty ; 
we  know  what  he'll  be,  too,  and  it's  a  wonder  that  we 
endure  his  presence  as  calmly  as  we  do.  The  same  with 
you,  Graves.  Next  week  you'll  have  a  pair  of  overalls 
and  a  job  in  your  father's  grain  elevator;  you'll  be  trot- 
ting around  with  sweat  in  your  eyes  and  dust  in  your 
throat  and  a  vision  of  cornering  the  wheat  market  in  the 
back  of  your  head.  But  you  won't.  In  ten  years  you'll 
have  a  house  on  the  west  side  of  the  tracks,  with  a  Swede 
girl  in  the  kitchen  and  the  guest  chamber  turned  into 
an  overflow  nursery.  Your  standardized  feet  are  set  on 
the  standardized  road  of  all  good  graduates.  You  will 
work,  marry,  keep  out  of  jail  if  possible,  send  your  sons 
back  to  follow  in  your  footsteps  and  have  your  reward 
in  a  quarter  page  in  the  annual  report  under  'Necrology.' 
If  you  are  very  successful  they  will  run  a  black  border 
around  it,  with  an  old  English  initial;  if  you're  only  par- 
tially standardized  you'll  get  nothing  but  plain  type." 

He  paused,  and  sighed  while  Graves  chuckled. 

"Sometimes  I  feel  the  pull  of  the  downward  path  my- 
self," he  concluded.  "I'm  afraid  that  I'm  partially  stand- 
ardized myself.  I  haven't  been  successful  in  wasting  all 
of  these  last  four  years." 

"Neither  have  I,"  said  Graves  soberly.  "I'm  a  better 
and  a  wiser  man  than  I  was  four  years  ago,  better  and 
wiser  than  I'd  be  if  I'd  spent  the  four  years  in  any  other 
way,  I  think,  although  there's  no  telling.  Four  years 


82  FLOOD  TIDE 

ago  the  world  consisted  of  football  with  a  fringe  of  algebra 
and  minor  vexations.  Two  years  ago  I  wanted  to  destroy 
everything  and  start  over  again  clean ;  the  world  had  got- 
ten into  a  horrible  mess  somehow  or  other  and  that  seemed 
the  easiest  way  out.  Now — any  one  can  call  me  a  fool 
and  I'll  agree,  with  him.  I've  learned  nothing  save  how 
little  I  know." 

"Isn't  that  the  standard?" 

"The  sum  of  all  wisdom,"  murmured  Langdon. 

"It's  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  at  any  rate,"  said 
Graves.  "But  what  has  given  me  that  view?  I'm  changed ; 
we're  all  changed.  Why?  It's  something  more  than  nor- 
mal growth,  but  just  what  it  is  .  .  ." 

"Catalysis,"  Langdon's  voice  came  to  us  out  of  the 
shadows.  "You  know  that  process  of  making  sulphuric 
acid?  You  mix  your  sulphur  dioxide — and  stinking  stuff 
it  is,  too — mix  it  with  air  in  the  presence  of  platinum 
and  run  it  into  water — result,  pure  sulphuric.  And — 
this  is  the  point — you  get  your  platinum  back  unchanged. 
Just  how  or  why  it  does  the  work  we  don't  know.  I  don't 
know,  anyway.  There  are  lots  of  things  I  don't  know. 
But  I  do  know  that  the  process  won't  go  on  without  it. 
Just  the  same  with  college;  bring  your  ideas  and  men 
in  contact  with  college  as  a  witness  and  you  get  some- 
thing which  may  or  may  not  be  pure  but  which  is  surely 
stronger  than  the  ordinary  run  of  human  chemistry. 
Why?  That's  another  of  the  things  I  don't  know.  I'm 
no  better  than  the  average  man  because  I  know  Catullus 
and  Goethe  and  Marlowe;  any  fool  can  study  them  and 
lots  of  fools  do.  I  haven't  grown  through  reading  books 
and  sleeping  through  lectures.  College  has  been  the 
catalyst  in  my  life  and  in  Coffin's  and  in  yours;  it  has 
changed  us  without  being  changed  itself.  It's  not  the 
stuff  we've  studied;  hang  that  and  the  sooner  we  forget 
it  the  better  for  us.  But  we  have  come  to  appreciate 
that  there's  something  in  life  beside  mere  body  needs  and 
satisfactions ;  somthing  beyond,  always  something  be- 


FLOOD  TIDE  83 

yond  whatever  narrow  circle  we  happen  to  drift  into  after 
to-morrow.  We  are  shut  off  forever  from  intolerance  and 
narrowness  and  impatience  with  others;  we've  gone 
through  that  and  come  out  beyond,  into  something 
broader  and  bigger.  We've  gone  up  on  the  heights  and 
seen  the  world ;  after  to-morrow  we  go  down  into  it.  But 
we  can't  forget  that  we've  seen  the  whole — or  enough  of 
the  whole  to  give  us  some  idea  of  the  illimitable  field  of 
human  life  and  thought.  That's  what  our  catalyst  has 
done  to  our  raw  material — nothing  more  than  keep  our 
minds  open  during  the  period  during  which  crystalliza- 
tion usually  occurs." 

He  leaned  forward  and  tapped  a  hissing  shower  of 
sparks  into  the  lake  below.  "I'd  like  to  write  one  more 
editorial  for  the  old  paper  to  that  effect,"  he  said  regret- 
fully. 

"I  think  that  you're  right,"  agreed  Graves,  picking  up 
a  minor  point.  "A  good  deal  of  this  pessimism  of  ours, 
this  picking  things  apart,  has  been  just  a  pose  with  us. 
Not  a  pose,  exactly,  but  a  necessary  stage  of  develop- 
ment which  we  got  through  as  soon  as  we  could."  Lang- 
don  made  noises  of  assent.  "But  it's  been  good  for  us; 
we've  had  glimpses  of  the  wheels  going  'round  which  we 
could  have  got  in  no  other  way." 

The  canoes  with  their  freight  of  singers  were  nearer 
now,  just  rounding  the  point  which  had  blanketed  the 
sound  of  their  voices.  We  caught  fragments  of  conver- 
sation ;  some  one  raised  his  voice  in  envy  of  Hal  Brown's 
"mash"  on  the  damsel  at  the  post  office.  Hal  answered 
with  a  splash  of  his  paddle;  we  saw  the  faint  phosphor- 
escent gleam  of  spray  and  heard  the  howls  of  remon- 
strance which  followed.  They  struck  off  into  song  again 
and  we  listened  in  vast  satisfaction. 

"You  see,"  said  Graves,  becoming  articulate  in  the 
midst  of  some  train  of  thought,  "there  are  so  many  new 
things  in  the  world  that  some  of  them  are  sure  to  be  mis- 
used. You've  got  to  try  a  thing  out  before  you  can  see 


84  FLOOD  TIDE 

the  faults  in  it.  And  this  century  has  been  one  of  trial 
and  experiment.  We're  children  with  a  lot  of  new  toys — 
steam  and  electricity  and  germ  theories  and  all  that.  It's 
a  second  Elizabethan  age ;  discovering  new  possibilities  in 
familiar  things  instead  of  discovering  new  lands.  And 
discoverers  can't  be  expected  to  stop  and  patch  things 
up." 

"Progress,  progress  everywhere  and  not  a  stop  to 
think,"  Langdon  cut  in. 

"Perhaps.  We've  been  stopping  to  think  for  four  years 
and  I'm  afraid  that  we're  a  little  outside  the  main  cur- 
rent. We're  prepared  to  enter  it,  in  one  way,  and  dam- 
nably unprepared  in  another.  As  though  Coff  were  to 
set  out  for  Europe  with  a  clean  pair  of  socks  and  a  trunk 
full  of  Baedekers.  ...  I  wonder.  Have  we  been  learning 
to  appreciate  scenery  when  we  should  have  been  tough- 
ening our  feet?" 

"We'll  toughen  up,"  I  assented  confidently.  "And  you 
can  forget  blisters  and  aches  sometimes  if  you  can  see 
something  beside  the  road  under  your  feet." 

Graves  sniff ed  rather  doubtfully,  but  I  think  that  Lang- 
don agreed  with  me. 

The  canoes  were  nearly  abreast  of  the  camp  by  this 
time,  three  faint  outlines  suspended  in  the  darkness.  We 
heard  the  careless  plunk  and  drip  of  paddles  as  they 
drifted  slowly  along.  Some  one  in  the  nearest  craft 
reached  the  nub  of  a  story  and  was  rewarded  by  a  thin 
spurt  of  laughter.  There  is  always  one  man  in  every 
crowd  who  tells  that  kind  of  story  at  inopportune  mo- 
ments. 

"And  that  reminds  me  of  another,"  he  was  encouraged 
to  say.  "There  was  an  Irishman " 

"Aw,  save  it  for  to-morrow,"  came  a  drawling  voice 
out  of  the  dimness. 

He  saved  it. 

There  was  silence  for  a  moment.  Then  Bones  Joy,  far 
out  in  the  most  distant  canoe,  started  that  old,  old  song 


FLOOD  TIDE  85 

of  inquiry;  started  softly  at  first  and  carrying  the  air, 
then  switching  to  a  clear  tenor  as  other  voices  joined  in 
with  him. 

"Where,  oh  where  are  the  grass-green  freshmen?"  he 
sang,  and  the  brisk  staccato  march  of  the  tune  set  our 
feet  swinging. 

"Safe  at  last  in  the  sophomore  class,"  they  concluded. 
The  second  boat  took  up  the  tune  and  carried  it  on  one 
more  year.  More  briskly  still  came  information  regard- 
ing the  drunken  juniors  from  the  third  canoe. 

There  was  a  pause  following  the  disposition  of  our 
traditional  enemies ;  then,  before  the  others  could  start 
the  fourth  verse  Graves  rose  to  his  feet,  pulling  up  Lang- 
don  and  myself  on  either  side  of  him.  He  started  the 
slow,  steady  chant  of  the  final  section;  Langdon  joined 
in  with  a  soaring  tenor  and  I  made  shift  with  an  uncer- 
tain bass  which  made  up  in  volume  what  it  lacked  in  tonal 
quality.  The  wall  of  the  camp  behind  us  threw  our  voices 
out  over  the  dusky  lake;  perhaps  it  was  surprise  which 
held  the  canoes  silent ;  perhaps  it  was  appreciation.  I 
know  that  as  we  marched  slowly  along  with  the  thrice 
repeated  inquiry  the  spirit  of  it  got  hold  of  us ;  it  was 
something  more  than  a  student  song  with  its  roots  reach- 
ing back  to  God  knows  where.  It  was  an  expression  of 
faith. 

"Where,  oh  where  are  the  grand  old  seniors? 
Safe  at  last  in  the  wide,  wide  world." 

"All  in !"  bellowed  Graves,  breaking  the  silence  which 
hung  over  the  last  strains  of  our  trio.  He  waved  as  though 
leading  an  invisible  orchestra;  the  canoes  swung  off  into 
the  requiem  which  has  been  sung  over  immemorial  classes. 

"They've  gone  out  from  their  Alma  Mater, 
They've  gone  out  from  their  Alma  Mater, 
They've  gone  out  from  their  Alma  Mater, 
Safe  at  last  m  the  wide,  wide  world." 


86  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Wide  world!"  repeated  the  echoes  from  the  further 
shore. 

"And  by  God,  we  are!"  said  Graves — and  there  was  a 
huskiness  in  his  voice  caused  by  something  beside  sing- 
ing. Langdon  coughed  dryly,  and  I — well,  I  sniffled  and 
was  grateful  for  the  darkness. 

Then  the  canoes  came  in  with  a  rush.  We  hauled  them 
out  and  built  a  great  fire  on  the  beach,  and  talked  and 
smoked  and  baked  ourselves  far  into  the  night,  until 
Bones  Joy  fell  asleep  and  nearly  rolled  into  the  fire.  Then 
we  broke  up  and  went  to  bed,  casting  the  glowing  brands 
of  the  fire  far  out  over  the  lake,  wheeling  and  trailing 
glowing  arcs  of  sparks  across  the  sky  and  finally  hissing 
to  darkness  in  the  water. 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 


I  HAD  planned  to  sail  from  Boston  early  in  July,  but  I 
stayed  home  for  a  while  at  my  father's  request. 

"Wait  over  another  boat,  son,"  he  had  said.  "I  haven't 
seen  much  of  you  for  a  year,  you  know." 

I  stayed  willingly,  although  down  deep  in  my  heart  I 
regretted  the  loss  of  a  week.  My  father  was  more  silent 
than  ever  during  this  week ;  he  was  always  rather  taciturn 
and  I  was  so  wrapped  up  in  the  summer  ahead  of  me  that 
I  failed  to  notice  anything  out  of  the  way.  I  remember 
feeling  hurt  when  he  failed  to  respond  to  my  enthusiastic 
plans ;  he  merely  listened  and  said  nothing.  One  evening 
toward  the  end  of  the  week,  as  we  sat  together  in  the  liv- 
ing room,  I  found  out  what  he  thought.  He  had  been 
silent  ever  since  supper,  puffing  away  at  his  pipe  and 
glancing  aslant  at  me  as  I  frowned  over  an  ancient  French 
timetable — a  relic  of  the  days  when  my  ambitions  had 
turned  toward  railroading.  Finally  he  hitched  his  chair 
around  to  face  me. 

"Put  by  your  book  for  a  while,  will  you?"  he  asked. 
"I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

I  wondered  what  was  coming,  as  I  folded  the  ragged 
sheets  of  the  timetable;  perhaps  some  fatherly  advice  on 
the  perils  of  Paris. 

"I  want  you  to  stay  home  this  summer,"  he  said  quietly. 

I  was  silent,  fumbling  about  in  my  mind  for  something 
to  say.  Then  a  wave  of  senseless  and  childish  disap- 
pointment swept  over  me. 

"Very  well,  sir,  if  you  think  I  can't  be  trusted,"  I  said 
stumblingly. 

871 


88  FLOOD  TIDE 

"It's  not  that  at  all,  son,"  he  answered.  "Perhaps  I 
should  have  gone  at  this  some  other  way,  but  I'm  no  good 
at  beating  around  the  bush.  I've  been  thinking  matters 
over  for  a  week  and  that's  my  conclusion.  I  want  you 
to  stay  home  this  summer.  Will  you?" 

"You're  the  boss,"  I  said  stiffly.     "It's  your  money." 

The  faint  shadow  of  a  smile  lurked  about  his  eyes. 

"Don't  look  at  it  that  way ;  you  don't  owe  me  anything. 
I've  done  no  more  for  you  than  I  should,  and — well,  it's 
been  as  much  fun  for  me  as  it  has  for  you.  It's  not  a  ques- 
tion of  money,  or  of  my  being  boss,  but  something  else. 

"Let  me  make  you  my  proposition,"  he  went  on,  "and 
then  perhaps  we  can  talk  it  over  without  your  looking 
so  down  in  the  mouth.  I  don't  know  the  first  thing  about 
this  teaching  game,  beyond  what  you've  told  me.  But 
I've  been  thinking  it  over  for  quite  a  while  and  the  only 
conclusion  that  I  can  arrive  at  is  that  it's  a  deuce  of  a 
poor  way  of  getting  a  living.  I  may  be  wrong,  and  if 
I  am  wrong  I  want  you  to  show  me.  That's  the  way  I 
look  at  it  now.  I  want  you  to  think  it  over  for  your- 
self between  now  and  September  and  if  you  still  think  well 
of  it  at  that  time  I  stand  ready  to  finance  a  year  abroad 
for  you.  You  can't  do  much  in  three  months  over  there, 
as  you  say." 

Good,  I  thought ;  a  year  was  better  than  three  months, 
much  better.  As  for  changing  my  mind — nonsense. 

"Is  it  a  bargain?"  he  asked. 

"It  is,  dad,  and  I'm  grateful  to  you  for  the  chance." 

"All  right,  then."  He  leaned  back  with  a  sigh  of  re- 
lief. "I'm  glad  that  you  see  it  that  way.  D'you  know, 
I've  been  a  bit  afraid  of  you  since  you  came  home  with 
those  glasses ;  I  feel  that  you  know  so  much  more  than 
I  do." 

I  laughed  rather  shamefacedly  as  I  took  off  the  glasses. 
"I  don't  really  need  them;  they're  more  for  the  looks  of 
the  thing  than  to  help  my  eyes,"  I  answered.  "And  as 
for  knowing  more  than  you — Cap'n  Billy  says  that  'a 


FLOOD  TIDE  89 

man  never  gets  so  strong  that  he  can  lick  his  father,'  and 
he's  right." 

He  chuckled,  and  filled  his  pipe  again  from  the  brown 
bowl. 

"Glad  you  think  so  highly  of  me.  Now  that  you  know 
what  I  think  of  this  teaching  idea  of  yours  we  can  talk 
it  over  sensibly.  How  much  would  you  get  the  first 
year?" 

"Eight  or  nine  hundred,"  I  answered.  "I  think  the 
average  is  about  that." 

"Not  bad;  not  bad  at  all.  About  what  the  average 
college  graduate  starts  on,  I  imagine — perhaps  a  little 
better  than  the  average.  And  after  that  ?  The  older  men 
get  more  than  that,  I  suppose." 

"I  think  that  they  run  between  twenty-five  hundred 
and  three  thousand,  although  I'm  not  sure.  Some  of  them 
get  more — heads  of  departments,  for  instance — but  I 
think  that  holds  good  for  most  of  them." 

"Old  men,  aren't  they?  That  is,  they've  been  teaching 
for  fifteen  or  twenty  years?" 

Most  of  them  were  about  forty-five,  I  thought.  I 
checked  them  off;  Estey,  Barnes,  Hawes,  Burton;  yes, 
they  were  all  over  that  age. 

My  father  shook  his  head  with  the  air  of  one  whose 
suspicions  are  confirmed.  "Doesn't  it  seem  to  you  that 
they're  getting  a  mighty  small  return  for  their  labor?  I 
know  that  they  seem  to  have  an  easy  time,  a  few  hours 
a  day  for  nine  or  ten  months  of  the  year.  That  isn't 
the  question,  of  course.  You're  not  looking  for  an  easy 
time.  But  they've  poured  their  whole  lives  into  teaching 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  they  ought  to  get  more  out  of  it. 
And  if  they  were  business  men  they  could  sell  out  and  re- 
tire when  they  get  along  in  years.  But  do  they?  I  think 
not;  they've  got  nothing  to  sell  out,  and  unless  they've 
been  mighty  careful  and  saving  they  have  to  stay  in  har- 
ness until  they  drop." 

I  said  something  about  "commercial  attitude." 


90  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Few  men  work  for  the  fun  of  it;  you've  got  to  look 
at  that  side  of  the  question.  I'm  not  looking  at  that  side 
alone,  but  it's  one  of  the  things  you've  got  to  consider. 
What  I  object  to  most  is  working  for  some  one  else  all 
your  life.  You  were  telling  me  about  a  man  named  Rey- 
nolds the  other  day;  what  about  him?  Good  man,  wasn't 
he?" 

"One  of  the  brightest  men  on  the  faculty." 

"Well  liked  among  the  fellows?" 

"You're  right  he  was,"  I  said  warmly.  "They  had  to 
club  men  to  keep  them  out  of  his  courses." 

"But  still  they  fired  him." 

"Those  old  fossils  on  the  Ad  Committee  were  afraid 
of  him  because  he  knew  too  much.  He  criticized  and  said 
what  he  thought — and  then  they  let  him  go  on  a  trumped- 
up  excuse." 

"That's  a  rather  sweeping  indictment  of  college  author- 
ity," said  my  father.  "Of  course  you're  willing  and  pre- 
pared to  knuckle  under  and  keep  your  mouth  shut  when 
you're  an  instructor?  Seems  to  me  it's  either  that  or 
be  fired,  like  Reynolds." 

I  hadn't  considered  that.  I  had  liked  Reynolds,  as 
every  one  did;  most  certainly,  had  I  been  in  his  shoes,  I 
should  have  acted  as  he  did,  spoken  my  mind  freely,  done 
as  I  pleased — provided  my  classes  were  well  conducted — 
and  probably  been  fired,  as  he  had  been.  I  remembered 
that  Estey  had  told  me  that  one  of  the  charges  brought 
up  against  Reynolds  was  that  he  had  lowered  the  aca- 
demic standard  by  wearing  a  soft  shirt  in  classes.  I  saw 
all  this  in  a  new  light,  and  it  troubled  me. 

"That's  one  of  the  things  I  want  you  to  think  over," 
observed  my  father,  as  I  sat  silent.  "You'll  have  to  sac- 
rifice a  good  many  of  your  ideals  whatever  you  do,  whether 
you  teach  or  go  into  business.  That's  only  one  thing 
you'll  have  to  give  up  if  you  go  into  teaching — this  right 
of  thinking  and  saying  what  you  please.  Always  a  sub- 
ordinate and  never  your  own  master." 


FLOOD  TIDE  91 

"Yes,  perhaps  I  would,"  I  answered  thoughtfully.  "I 
hadn't  looked  at  it  in  that  light  before."  Already  my 
father's  shafts  were  finding  the  weak  places  in  my  armor. 
"But  if  I  don't  teach  all  my  study  will  be  wasted.  Estey 
says " 

I  stopped;  to  tell  the  truth,  I  was  afraid  to  go  on.  I 
had  never  seen  my  father  angry  before. 

"The  sooner  you  get  this  idea  of  'Estey  says'  out  of 
your  head  the  better  for  you,"  he  said  with  a  new  note 
in  his  voice.  "I  have  no  doubt  but  he's  a  good  man,  but 
he's  not  living  your  life  for  you.  He  may  have  a  lot  of 
fine  theories  of  life,  but  they're  just  theories.  And  so 
have  you ;  do  you  know  anything  about  coal-mining,  brok- 
ering, real  estate,  beyond  that  in  theory  they're  dirty 
and  commercial?  That's  it;  everything  outside  of  books 
is  dirty  and  money-grabbing — in  theory.  By  Heaven, 
I'd  rather  fish  for  a  living,  and  be  able  to  call  my  soul  my 
own,  than  to  have  to  knuckle  down  and  say  things  I  don't 
believe  and  think  tilings  that  I  don't  dare  to  say,  just 
because  some  Administration  Committee  might  think  that 
I  was  radical  and  dangerous  and  a  man  to  get  rid  of!" 

He  stopped  abruptly,  and  knocked  out  the  ashes  of 
his  pipe. 

"Hang  it,  I've  lost  my  temper,  a  luxury  I  haven't  per- 
mitted myself  in  years,"  he  said.  "But  I  mean  it  all. 
Estey  and  that  crowd  may  seem  broad-minded  to  you, 
perhaps  they  are,  but  like  most  broad  things  they're  shal- 
low; any  man  who  sees  nothing  in  the  world  beyond  his 
immediate  surroundings  is  shallow.  As  for  your  study 
being  wasted — have  you  learned  nothing  but  what  you're 
planning  to  teach?  I  think  you've  got  a  few  things  out- 
side of  that." 

"I  think  I  have,  too." 

"I've  said  enough,  I  guess,  to  let  you  know  how  I  look 
at  these  plans  of  yours ;  I've  said  more  than  I  intended. 
Think  it  over;  take  all  summer  if  you  want.  If  you're 
of  the  same  mind  in  the  Fall,  I've  made  my  promise  and 


92  FLOOD  TIDE 

I'll  stick  to  it.  If  you  really  want  to  teach,  want  to 
with  all  your  heart  and  soul,  you'll  do  it  anyway.  But 
I  don't  think  that  you  want  it  that  way.  It's  up  to  you." 


After  that  it  was  my  father  who  read  and  I  who 
thought. 

I  cannot  reconstruct  that  summer;  I  remember  days 
when  I  was  convinced  that  I  was  right  following  and  suc- 
ceeded by  days  when  I  thought  that  the  whole  world  was 
wrong  and  that  I  as  decidedly  out  of  place  in  the  gen- 
eral scheme  of  things.  This  was  really  the  first  time  in 
my  life  that  I  had  been  called  upon  to  decide  things 
for  myself;  it  was  the  parting  of  the  ways  and  I  found 
it  very  hard  to  make  up  my  mind  one  way  or  the  other. 
This  choosing  of  one  road  or  the  other  is  a  common  ex- 
perience ;  every  man  makes  these  decisions  many  times  dur- 
ing his  lifetime.  But  usually  they  are  made  easily,  with- 
out thinking;  only  on  looking  back  do  we  see  that  here 
or  there  we  have  unknowingly  passed  the  cross  roads. 
Decision  is  difficult  when  we  sit  down  to  think  it  over. 

I  went  through  this  period  of  decision  without  asking 
help.  Yet  Elizabeth  helped  me,  in  a  way.  During  the 
summer  I  realized  that  we  had  both  changed.  My  own 
change  was  an  accentuation  of  the  romantic  streak  in 
my  nature ;  her  change  was  toward  an  almost  harsh  prac- 
ticality. At  times  I  caught  in  her  a  distant  resemblance 
to  Graves,  minus  his  protean  viewpoint  but  still  prag- 
matic. Again,  some  opinion  of  hers  reminded  me  of  Dick. 
I  began  to  distrust  my  loose  and  florid  imagination  as  a 
disease,  to  wonder  if  it  might  not  lead  me  from  one  vain 
imagining  to  another  all  my  life. 

Teaching,  as  a  vocation,  lost  its  appeal.  Yet  nothing 
came  to  take  its  place.  In  this  period  of  indecision  I 
wrote  to  Graves  explaining  my  predicament;  an  absurd 


FLOOD  TIDE  93 

letter  bristling  with  French  quotations  and  tag  ends  of 
second-hand  philosophy.  He  replied,  as  I  remember  it, 
that  going  to  work  would  be  a  damned  good  thing  for 
me. 

And,  ultimately,  I  came  to  that  decision  myself. 

I  decided  that  my  father  was  right  and  that  Estey  and 
I  were  wrong.  As  the  summer  passed,  I  gradually  came 
over  to  my  father's  views  of  teaching  and  teachers ;  I  saw 
that  I  had  idealized  these  men  and  that  there  was  an- 
other side  of  their  lives  beside  the  pleasant  intellectual 
existence  which  had  appealed  to  me.  It  was  my  first  look 
into  the  future,  unblinded  by  romance;  I  put  myself  in 
the  place  of  Estey  and  considered  what  I  would  be  at  his 
age.  Forty-five,  fifty,  perhaps,  with  a  professorship  if  I 
was  lucky — and  what  else?  A  few  thousands  saved,  per- 
haps a  house  of  my  own ;  the  consciousness  of  a  life  spent 
in  clubbing  grammar  and  literature  into  unresponsive 
young  cubs,  and  old  age  coming  on.  Old  age,  and  the 
constant  fear  of  being  supplanted  by  some  younger  man ; 
either  a  constant,  bitter  struggle  to  keep  abreast  with 
the  times,  learning  after  the  zest  for  learning  had  gone, 
or  becoming  out  of  date  and  behind  the  times.  Strug- 
gling, not  to  increase  my  earning  power,  but  to  keep  pace 
with  the  procession.  I  remembered  the  quaint  manner- 
isms of  the  older  professors ;  I  had  found  amusement  in 
them  once,  but  I  didn't  now.  I  deliberately  looked  at 
the  darker  side  to  the  exclusion  of  my  former  viewpoint; 
I  dug  into  my  mind  for  doubts  which  I  had  once  dis- 
missed without  consideration.  It  was  the  idea  of  work- 
ing for  some  one  else  all  my  life  which  finally  decided  me. 
I'm  not  sure,  but  I  think  it  was  the  independence  of  the 
life  that  attracted  me,  and  with  that  illusion  stripped 
away  the  decision  came  easily. 

Still  I  hesitated  about  telling  my  father.  If  I  told 
him,  the  decision  would  be  irrevocable;  I  wanted  to  keep 
the  question  open  as  long  as  possible.  As  a  matter  of 


94  FLOOD  TIDE 

fact,  Bess  was  the  first  one  to  know  of  this  decision ;  after 
I  told  her  there  was  no  backing  out. 
I  asked  her  to  marry  me. 

ra 

It  came  quite  unexpectedly  to  both  of  us.  All  through 
college  I  had  entertained  a  dim  idea  that  some  day  I 
would  marry  Bess,  if  I  married  at  all,  but  all  summer  the 
conviction  had  been  growing  upon  me  that  life  without 
her  would  be  insupportable. 

I  had  gone  over  to  her  house,  one  evening  after  finish- 
ing my  work  at  the  store,  and  found  her  in  the  garden 
behind  the  house;  we  sat  under  the  trees  in  the  gathering 
dusk,  talked  for  a  while  and  then  fell  silent.  Then  I 
asked  her.  I  remember  the  clear  outline  of  her  profile 
against  the  darkening  eastern  sky  as  she  plucked  at  the 
close  cropped  grass  and  wrinkled  her  brows  in  perplex- 
ity; I  realized  quite  suddenly  that  she  was  a  woman  and 
no  longer  a  schoolgirl.  I  felt  immeasurably  young  and 
inexperienced ;  I  was  rich  in  nothing  but  possibilities ;  ex- 
perienced in  nothing  at  all;  my  only  knowledge  was  that 
I  knew  nothing.  But  I  had  asked  her,  and  I  sat  dog- 
gedly awaiting  her  answer. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said  slowly.  "I've  always  thought 
some  day  you  and  I " 

"Just  what  I've  always  thought,"  I  said  eagerly. 

"But  that  isn't  the  only  thing.  You'll  be  abroad  for 
a  year  and  after  that " 

"I'm  not  going,  Bess ;  I've  given  that  up." 

She  turned  and  looked  at  me,  her  lips  parted  in  sur- 
prise. 

"You're  the  first  one  to  know  it.  I'm  going  into  busi- 
ness. I'm  going  to  work  at  Hatherly's — the  wholesale 
house,  you  know.  Old  Hatherly  promised  me  a  job  once 
and  I'm  going  to  take  him  up." 


FLOOD  TIDE  95 

She  was  still  silent,  adjusting  herself  to  new  condi- 
tions. 

"Well?"  I  said,  as  courageously  as  I  could. 

I  saw  one  eyebrow  creep  up  in  that  dear  one-sided 
smile  and  I  knew  my  answer.  She  drew  back  and  made 
a  gesture  for  silence;  we  heard  some  one  approaching 
around  the  corner  of  the  house. 

"Mother,"  she  whispered.     "Come." 

Like  two  conspirators  we  crept  around  the  house  in 
the  twilight;  I  heard  Mrs.  Alden  calling  behind  us,  but 
we  reached  the  gate  and  the  shelter  of  the  hedge  before 
she  saw  us. 

We  hesitated,  and  then  turned  toward  the  sea.  We 
crossed  the  Square  and  struck  into  the  road  which  led 
out  between  the  silent  houses  to  the  Point.  The  noises 
and  the  lights  of  the  town  faded  behind  us;  only  we  two 
and  the  stars  and  the  quiet  breathing  of  the  sea  as  we 
went  on.  The  road  dwindled  to  a  cart  track,  then  to 
a  mere  path.  I  slipped  my  arm  about  Bess  and  she  drew 
closer,  her  shoulder  just  under  my  arm.  We  were  con- 
tent. 

But  still.  .  .  . 

"I'm  glad  that  you've  given  up  your  idea  of  teaching," 
she  said  presently.  "There's  not  much  money  in  that,  is 
there?" 

My  father's  own  argument,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  grate 
on  me,  coming  from  her. 

"You  think  that's  why  I've  given  it  up?" 

"Isn't  it?" 

"Partly,"  I  admitted.  "But  I  want  to  be  my  own  boss ; 
to  say  and  think  what  I  please." 

"Oh,  that!"  she  said,  as  though  that  was  a  very  minor 
reason  indeed.  We  looked  at  it  differently,  I  thought. 
But  Bess  and  I  were  at  odds  on  so  many  things  that  I 
had  come  to  accept  it  as  the  natural  state  of  affairs.  I 
was  in  love  with  Bess,  not  with  her  views  of  life. 


96  FLOOD  TIDE 

"And  Hatherly's?"  she  asked  softly.  "It's  a  big 
place?" 

"Not  too  big  for  me." 

"It's  practical,  at  least,"  she  decided. 

I  wonder.  The  thought  struck  me  then,  as  it  does  now, 
that  perhaps  what  I  saw  in  Hatherly's  was  merely  a 
chance  for  exercising  my  imagination  in  new  lines,  and 
not  an  opportunity  for  serious  work. 

"You  must  be  practical,"  she  criticized.  "Imagining 
things  doesn't  get  you  anywhere.  It  hasn't  got  us  very 
much  so  far." 

"I  know."  The  last  flicker  of  hope  of  her  father's  re- 
turn from  the  Klondike  had  vanished  that  spring.  "Let's 
not  talk  of  that  to-night." 

"But— 

I  swung  her  away  from  me  and  stood  with  both  hands 
on  her  shoulders.  "I'm  a  hard  headed  business  man,  with 
no  trace  of  sentiment  in  my  cosmos,"  I  proclaimed.  "I 
eat  competitors  alive.  Men  fear  me.  I  bark  short  and 
snappy  orders  and  everybody  runs.  Are  you  satisfied?" 

"Satisfied,"  she  nodded,  half  smiling  and  half  serious. 

We  went  on  down  the  narrow  path  which  twisted  down 
between  the  ledges  to  the  little  cove  at  the  tip  of  the 
Point.  The  warm  sand  crunched  beneath  our  feet  as  we 
stopped.  On  the  beach  below  us  the  waves  whispered  and 
hissed  in  the  dimness,  the  slender  threads  of  foam  on  their 
crests  appearing  mysteriously  out  of  the  blackness,  flash- 
ing a  moment,  and  then  vanishing.  From  far  away  over 
the  sea,  as  though  from  a  low  hung  planet,  came  the 
gleam  of  the  light  on  Great  Head;  flash,  flash,  a  pause — 
then  a  longer  glow  and  the  light  disappeared,  pulsing  off 
its  number  to  the  velvet  sky  and  silken  sea;  the  heart- 
beat of  the  sea,  marking  the  passage  of  eternity.  Beat, 
beat,  pause;  beat — and  the  steady  stars  shone  alone. 
Night,  the  brooding  expanse  of  quaker-gray  sea — and 
Bess.  God!  to  be  young  again! 

Out  of  the  darkness  a  darker  shape  materialized  and 


FLOOD  TIDE  97 

stole  slowly  along,  some  belated  launch  returning  to  har- 
bor, the  red  glow  of  the  port  light  rising  and  falling  in 
slow  rhythm.  Suddenly  the  long  beam  of  a  searchlight 
shot  out  from  the  slow  moving  mass,  a  faintly  outlined 
silver  beam  tipped  with  cold  fire.  It  played  about  among 
the  anchored  craft  as  the  launch  crept  in  and  lost  head- 
way, resting  for  a  moment  on  some  craft,  outlining  every 
shroud  in  pure  white  against  the  dusk,  and  then  capri- 
ciously sweeping  on  to  the  next. 

Then  with  a  swoop  the  beam  swung  over  to  the  Point, 
rested  a  moment,  and  then  started  swiftly  toward  us. 
Rocks  and  ledges  sprang  into  being,  deeper  shadows  ap- 
peared and  disappeared  as  the  light  leaped  along.  It 
reached  the  end  of  the  little  cove  and  came  on  more  stead- 
ily. It  approached,  bathed  us  for  a  moment  in  its  white 
radiance,  and  passed  on. 

As  it  passed  in  its  careless  search  it  left  one  impression 
which  will  be  mine  as  long  as  I  breathe — and  after,  if 
the  dead  smile  over  dear  memories.  I  remember  the  clear 
silhouette  of  Bess's  profile  against  the  glare,  framed  in 
the  golden  nimbus  of  her  hair.  I  remember  the  soft  flow- 
ing lines  of  her  dress,  the  rose  in  her  hair,  her  cheek 
curved  in  a  smile.  I  remember  catching  my  breath  in- 
voluntarily, as  though  I  had  touched  on  some  mystery 
beyond  all  my  knowledge. 

With  an  almost  audible  click  the  light  vanished  and 
we  were  left  in  darkness,  face  to  face  with  the  eternal 
mystery  of  the  open  sea. 


BOOK  THE   SECOND 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 


THERE  was  a  tradition  about  the  warehouse  that  Hath- 
erly  had  once  been  seen  without  his  hat,  a  tradition  whose 
origin  was  lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  Even  old  Jen- 
kins, who  had  been  with  the  house  for  over  thirty  years, 
failed  to  recall  the  origin  of  this  myth.  Winter  and 
summer,  in  the  office  and  in  the  warehouse,  Hatherly  and 
his  flat  topped  derby  were  one  and  inseparable.  Jim 
Chapman,  the  head  teamster,  declared  that  the  "Old  Man" 
wore  it  even  in  the  barber's  chair.  But  this  was  merely 
a  theory,  and  Jim,  although  professing  great  disrespect 
for  Hatherly  always  jumped  with  the  rest  of  us  when 
the  hat  came  bobbing  down  the  crowded  aisles,  preceded 
by  Hatherly's  raucous  shout  of  "Er-r-r,  boy!"  We  were 
all  nameless,  at  Hatherly's ;  everybody  was  "boy" — pro- 
nounced, as  nearly  as  I  can  render  it,  "bwey!"  in  one 
sharp  explosive  outburst.  Add  to  this  shout  a  triple 
chin,  a  pudgy  chin  and  two  sharp  eyes  set  in  a  wilder- 
ness of  fine  wrinkles  under  the  curled  hat  brim  and  you 
have  Hatherly  to  the  life. 

He  also  had  a  queer  stenographic  manner  of  speech 
which  was  very  difficult  to  follow. 

"Er-r-r,  boy!"  he  would  say.  "Order — Lawrence — 
gone  yet?" 

A  rustle  of  pages,  and  Carr  would  say  that  it  had  left 
that  morning. 

"Right.  Harrumph!  Kick  last  time — slow — happen 
again." 

And  then,  stepping  to  the  door  and  squinting  up,  he 
would  volunteer  the  information  that  it  was  "Funny 
101 


102  FLOOD  TIDE 

weather."  Rain,  snow  or  cloudless  skies,  it  was  always 
funny  weather.  Then,  with  the  air  of  one  with  no  time 
to  waste  on  idle  gossip,  he  would  bob  away  again,  the 
shout  of  "Bwey!"  and  the  slam  of  the  office  door  would 
float  back  to  us  and  we  would  be  safe  from  interruption 
for  at  least  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

There  were  'many  times  during  that  first  year  when  I 
hated  Hatherly's,  the  entire  wholesale  grocery  trade,  and 
all  its  connections  with  a  deep  and  abiding  hatred.  I 
didn't  fit  in.  Worse  still,  I  saw  absolutely  no  chance  of 
getting  ahead.  I  came  to  Hatherly's  a  young-man-in-a- 
hurry,  feeling  that  I  had  dropped  four  years  and  resolved 
to  recover  my  lost  ground  as  soon  as  possible.  But  my 
progress  was  damnably  slow.  I  wonder  now,  not  at  the 
slowness  of  my  progress,  but  that  Hatherly  gave  me  the 
chance  of  getting  ahead  at  all.  I  had  many  squabbles 
with  the  other  clerks ;  I  never  did  quite  get  in  touch  with 
them,  even  toward  the  last.  I  put  myself  on  the  defen- 
sive; to  avoid  seeming  stupid  I  pretended  alertness;  I 
feigned  complete  understanding  of  muzzy  explanations 
and  directions  when  I  grasped  only  outlying  fragments 
of  the  idea.  I  made  many  mistakes ;  more  than  once  the 
only  way  out  of  the  maze  seemed  to  chuck  the  entire  af- 
fair and  enlist  in  a  pick  and  shovel  brigade.  I  would 
go  home  to  my  stuffy  little  room  over  Beacon  Hill  con- 
vinced that  I  was  an  abject  failure,  resolved  to  give  Hath- 
erly a  week's  notice  in  the  morning.  And  then,  lying 
awake  with  a  hot  head,  I  would  plan  coups,  imagine  some 
extraordinary  situation  in  which  my  efforts  would  save 
Hatherly  from  annihilation.  But,  just  as  Hatherly  of- 
fered me  a  partnership,  I  would  remember  that  I  had 
sworn  to  be  practical.  And  bump — bump — plop;  my 
punctured  balloon  bounced  down  the  rose-marble  steps  of 
romance  and  expired  wheezily  in  the  muddy  gutter  of 
fact.  I  went  to  sleep  wondering  whether  the  Old  Man 
would  fire  me  first  thing  in  the  morning  or  postpone 
the  pleasurable  slaughter  until  afternoon. 


FLOOD  TIDE  103 

When  matters  became  quite  unendurable  I  walked  over 
to  Cambridge  and  wept  on  the  neck  of  Bones  Joy.  He 
had  been  a  frequenter  of  the  old  room  in  Franklin  House, 
had  graduated  with  me  and  was  pursuing  an  elusive  A.  M. 
at  Harvard.  I  usually  came  away  comforted.  Joy  had 
troubles  of  his  own.  Another  relaxation  was  visiting 
Luigi,  the  brown,  car-ringed  Italian  who  did  odd  jobs 
about  the  warehouse.  We  talked  Italian — very  stumbling 
Italian  on  my  part  and  Tuscan  of  swift,  bird-like  swoops 
on  Luigi's — and  drank  white  wine  in  his  sand-scrubbed 
room  in  a  North  Square  four-decker.  I  was  moved  to 
make  charcoal  sketches  of  Luigi  and  Giulia  and  the  two 
fat  bambini — spoiling  them,  however,  in  applying  the  fix- 
ative— and  was  considered  a  gran  signor  indeed.  And 
on  Sundays  Luigi  and  I  went  to  the  old  Art  Museum  in 
Copley  Square  and  gesticulated  eloquently  over  paintings 
and  statuary.  .  .  .  This  was  far  from  living  on  polenta 
in  Florence  and  bunking  under  a  blue  push  cart  adorned 
with  purple  roses,  but  it  was  at  least  a  passable  substi- 
tute. 

But  gradually  I  was  weaned  from  these  romantic  col- 
legiate ambitions.  One  by  one  these  dim,  bookish  ab- 
stractions which  had  been  my  horizon  were  blotted  out  by 
realities.  I  had  but  one  ambition,  to  get  married,  but 
my  chances  seemed  to  recede  as  time  advanced.  Promo- 
tion failed  to  come ;  it  loitered  tantalizingly  along  the 
way,  circled  up  slowly  and  coyly,  and  no  amount  of  dili- 
gence on  my  part  seemed  to  hasten  its  approach.  As 
for  marrying  on  the  salary  I  was  getting,  that  was  un- 
thinkable ;  Kendricks  and  Joy  united  to  knock  that  out 
of  my  head. 

Kendricks  was  the  man  next  above  me;  he  was  only 
two  years  my  senior  but  had  already  been  at  Hatherly's 
seven  years,  had  a  wife  and  two  children  and  was  the 
happiest  and  most  self-satisfied  mortal  in  seven  states. 
He  was  a  red  faced,  loud  voiced  man,  one  of  these  men 
who  bustle  about  and  make  a  great  clatter  over  their 


104  FLOOD  TIDE 

work  and  don't  do  so  much  after  all.  During  the  lunch 
hour  he  would  perch  on  a  crate  near  the  shipping  room 
door,  swinging  his  short  legs  while  he  swigged  cold  coffee 
from  a  bottle  and  speared  sandwiches  from  his  lunch 
bag;  on  such  occasions  he  had  a  habit  of  holding  forth 
in  an  amazingly  frank  manner  on  his  home  life  in  gen- 
eral and  the  benefits  of  matrimony  in  particular.  I  think 
that  marriage  had  been  the  one  great  event  in  his  life ; 
he  never  tired  of  talking  of  it. 

"Ought  to  try  it,  Coffin,"  he  declaimed,  waving  the  bot- 
tle. "Look  at  me.  Bummed  around  lodging  houses  for 
five  years  before  I  met  Maggie.  Thin?  Lord  bless  you, 
I've  gained  forty  pounds  since  then.  Always  helling 
around ;  I  was  a  wild  young  dog,  I  guess.  There's  nothing 
like  it.  Makes  a  man  of  you." 

The  coffee  bottle  tilted  toward  the  ceiling. 

"Owe  it  all  to  her,"  he  said  with  a  hint  of  moisture 
about  his  eyes — perhaps  some  of  the  coffee  went  the  wrong 
way.  "Come  out  and  see  us  some  time — any  time." 

I  went  home  with  him  one  night.  Kendricks  lived  out 
in  Somerville,  and  a  long,  tedious  ride  it  was  in  the 
crowded  electric;  Kendricks  went  into  a  trance  over  the 
sporting  sheet  and  took  the  conductor's  number  when 
we  were  carried  two  blocks  past  his  street. 

"Go  chase  yourself,  you  fat  sleep  walker,"  snorted  the 
conductor  as  the  car  shot  on  into  the  darkness. 

"Damned  impudence,"  fumed  Kendricks.  "Report  him 
to-morrow,  sure  as  shooting." 

I  made  inarticulate  noises  of  sympathy. 

"Oh,  well,"  he  said  more  cheerfully,  "we're  home,  any- 
way. Great  neighborhood,  this,  Coffin.  Like  out  in  the 
country.  Quiet.  Only  ten  years  ago  it  was  all  marsh 
here ;  now  look  at  it,  all  built  up.  Down  here  three  blocks 
is  where  I  live." 

It  might  have  been  like  the  country  for  all  I  know,  in- 
asmuch as  he  failed  to  state  what  particular  sylvan  glade 
it  resembled.  By  this  time  I  had  become  accustomed  to 


FLOOD  TIDE  105 

this  kind  of  suburb,  but  it  impressed  me  that  night  as 
something  hideously  ugly.  Row  after  row  of  three-deckers, 
all  alike,  alternated  with  partially  bare  house  lots  chastely 
decorated  with  bill-boards  and  tin  cans.  Quiet  it  certainly 
was  not,  save  perhaps  by  comparison  with  Hatherly's; 
there  was  a  ceaseless  restless  murmur  of  street  cars  and 
humanity,  rising  and  falling  but  always  audible.  I 
glanced  down  at  the  little  man  trotting  along  beside  me 
and  wondered  what  he  would  think  of  Whitehaven's  quiet 
elm-shaded  streets.  An  impenetrable  wilderness,  prob- 
ably, and  the  wide  reaches  of  the  marsh  would  seem  to 
him  as  desolate  as  the  vastness  of  interstellar  space.  I 
was  conscious  of  a  sudden  feeling  of  whimsical  respect 
for  any  one  who  could  recognize  his  own  home  among  all 
these. 

I  enjoyed  that  evening,  despite  my  jaundiced  view  of 
this  way  of  living.  Mrs.  Kendricks  proved  to  be  a  cheer- 
ful young  woman  with  a  dress  which  was  imperfectly 
hooked  up  the  back;  she  presided  over  the  supper  table 
and  abetted  Kendricks  in  an  obvious  conspiracy  to  dis- 
guise the  fact  that  there  wasn't  quite  enough  to  go 
around.  Evidently  she  had  not  expected  company.  Af- 
ter supper  Kendricks  showed  me  his  stamp  album  while 
Mrs.  Kendricks  washed  the  dishes ;  later  she  brought  in 
the  two  youngsters  to  bid  us  good-night. 

"Hugh  and  Cry,  I  call  them,"  chuckled  Kendricks,  as 
they  smiled  sleepily  at  us  over  their  mother's  shoulders. 
The  jest  was  new  then. 

Mrs.  Kendricks  sang  for  us  after  that,  first  protesting 
that  she  was  dreadfully  out  of  practice,  a  contention 
which  she  proved  as  she  stumbled  through  a  series  of 
those  sentimental  ballads  which  were  so  prevalent  just 
after  the  war  with  Spain.  But  she  sang  very  well,  in  con- 
trast to  her  performance  on  the  piano;  she  sang  in  a  low 
and  pleasant  alto  voice,  and  when  Kendricks  discovered 
a  tattered  old  book  of  songs  which  had  stood  the  test  of 
time  I  settled  back  and  enjoyed  it  thoroughly.  Kendricks 


106  FLOOD  TIDE 

timidly  discovered  a  voice  and  hummed  a  wordless  accom- 
paniment, not  so  much  an  accompaniment  as  a  rich,  deep 
volume  of  sound  against  which  his  wife's  clearer  tones 
stood  out  in  silhouette.  I  thought  of  the  closed  piano  in 
the  parlor  at  Whitehaven;  I  wondered  if  my  father  and 
mother  had  ever  sung  like  this  in  the  evening,  and  alto- 
gether I  felt  'more  happily  miserable  than  I  had  for  a 
long  time. 

Toward  ten  o'clock  the  people  in  the  flat  above  gave 
evidences  of  appreciation. 

"Let  'em  pound,"  said  Kendricks,  and  seemed  disposed 
to  ignore  the  applause.  "They  gave  the  kids  some  rotten 
fruit  last  week;  serve  'em  right  to  be  kept  awake.  Get 
back  at  'em.  .  .  .  Try  this  one,  Maggie." 

Mrs.  Kendricks  agreed  with  him,  to  all  outward  ap- 
pearances, but  I  understood  that  she  had  to  live  in  the 
same  house  with  the  people  upstairs  twenty-fours  a  day. 
I  made  a  great  pretense  of  horror  at  discovering  the  late- 
ness of  the  hour;  Kendricks  urged  me  to  stay — -"Stay  all 
night ;  we  can  put  you  up  on  the  couch" — but  I  finally  got 
away. 

I  find  it  difficult  to  account  for  my  state  of  mind  that 
night.  At  first  I  envied  Kendricks.  He  was  happy,  sat- 
isfied, content  with  little  things,  perhaps,  but  still  very 
content.  His  ambitions  were  fulfilled;  he  had  a  wife, 
a  home,  children  and  a  job.  What  more  could  he  want? 
Nothing. 

I  reached  the  car  line  as  I  came  to  this  decision;  a  car 
came  rumbling  along;  I  ran  a  few  steps  after  it  and  then 
stopped  and  let  it  pass.  I  dreaded  going  back  to  the 
stuffy  little  room  in  the  lodging  house.  I  crossed  over 
and  struck  out  into  another  side  street. 

As  I  went  along,  more  than  half  envying  Kendricks,  I 
took  up  the  thread  again.  He  wanted  nothing  more — 
but  myself?  I  realized  that  I  was  not  Kendricks  and 
never  would  be.  I  knew  too  much.  I  tried  to  imagine 
myself  as  content  with  his  lot,  tried  to  put  myself  in 


FLOOD  TIDE  107 

his  place  and  realized  the  impossibility  of  it.  As  Graves 
had  said,  I  was  one  of  those  who  had  discovered  some- 
thing1 in  life  beyond  small  things,  and  once  found  it  was 
impossible  to  forget.  Happiness  for  Kendricks  was  quite 
another  thing  from  happiness  for  Coffin.  In  Kendricks's 
place  I  would  be  eating  my  heart  out  with  unfulfilled  am- 
bitions. I  knew  that  there  was  something  better,  while 
Kendricks  didn't.  Perhaps  he  knew,  perhaps  he  ignored 
the  existence  of  something  better,  knowing  that  it  was 
beyond  his  reach;  perhaps  he  had  known  and  forgotten. 
I  couldn't  admit  that  there  was  anything  beyond  my 
reach.  I  tried  to  imagine  myself  living  as  Kendricks  did, 
and  still  keeping  my  ambitions.  I  failed  in  that;  I  knew 
myself  too  well. 

Another  consideration  and  a  less  selfish  one  forced  it- 
self upon  me.  I  had  some  one  to  consider  beside  myself. 
Would  Bess  like  this  sort  of  existence?  I  thought  not. 
Discontent  stood  out  in  her  character  like  an  underlined 
word;  she  was  discontented  with  Whitehaven  and  she 
would  scarcely  be  content  to  live  sandwiched  between  two 
other  families,  economizing,  denying  herself,  even  for 
the  wonderful  privilege  of  welcoming  me  home  every  night. 
And  even  Kendricks's  manner  of  living  was  beyond  me ; 
in  point  of  dollars  and  cents  he  was  my  superior.  It 
might  be  beyond  me  for  years;  to  date  I  had  seen  no  in- 
dications of  success.  I  was  sure  of  nothing;  least  of  all 
was  I  sure  of  my  own  ability  to  succeed.  There  is  no 
despair  so  utterly  hopeless  as  that  of  uncertain  youth, 
and  I  found  a  gloomy  pleasure  in  going  to  the  bottom  of 
the  cup. 

I  must  have  wandered  and  thought  for  a  long  time, 
for  it  was  nearly  midnight  when  I  turned  out  into  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue  and  found  the  lights  of  Harvard  Square 
ahead  of  me.  On  a  sudden  impulse  I  made  a  detour  to 
pass  the  house  where  Bones  Joy  roomed ;  I  felt  a  need 
of  advice.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  some  one;  Bones  was  a 


108  FLOOD  TIDE 

good  deal  of  a  fool  in  many  things,  but  even  poor  counsel 
was  better  than  none. 

There  was  a  light  in  his  window,  and  I  found  him  still 
at  work  despite  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  sweating  and 
smoking  and  making  notes  over  a  big  volume. 

"Hello,  Haroun-al-Coffin,"  he  said  in  surprise.  "How 
fare  the  streets  of  Bagdad?" 

"What  do  you  know  about  marriage,  Bonesy?"  I  asked 
abruptly. 

"Never  tried  it." 

"What  do  you  think  of  it,  I  mean?" 

He  considered  my  question  with  some  show  of  amuse- 
ment. No  doubt  there  was  a  trace  of  the  ridiculous  in 
calling  on  a  man  at  midnight  with  such  a  query. 

"As  an  institution,  it  has  my  approval,"  he  concluded. 
"It  keeps  people  out  of  mischief." 

"But  seriously,"  I  said  impatiently. 

He  hesitated  and  tipped  back  his  eye  shade. 

"I  don't  think  of  it,"  he  said,  and  then  repeated  it  in 
a  changed  voice.  "I  don't  think  of  it.  I  don't  dare  to 
think  of  it." 

"You  mean " 

"We're  all  fools,  you  know ;  you  and  I  and  all  of  us — 
myself  most  of  all.  I'm  twenty-four,  as  fit  for  marriage 
as  I'll  ever  be,  both  mentally  and  biologically,  and  I  don't 
dare  to  think  of  marriage.  I've  had  my  choice  between 
an  M.  A.  and  a  wife  and  I've  chosen  the  M.  A.  Isn't  that 
being  a  fool?  It's  like  hunger,  you  know;  if  you  think 
of  food,  you  want  it;  if  you  don't  think  of  it  you — don't 
mind  it  so  much.  I  have  to  keep  the  door  locked  on 
everything  but  study;  marriage  is  one  of  the  things  that 
I've  locked  out.  You've  no  idea  how  hard  it  is  to  keep 
the  door  shut — they  beat  on  it  till  you  can't  think,  some- 
times. Are  you  up  against  the  same  problem?" 

"Almost  the  same,"  I  admitted.  "But  you  must  have 
some  definite  idea  of  it." 


FLOOD  TIDE  109 

"I  have.  We  all  have  a  choice  of  three  courses  when 
we  come  out  of  college.  We  can  marry  then,  and  give 
hostages  to  fortune,  we  can  contract  with  some  girl  to 
live  in  a  state  which  is  neither  courtship  nor  marriage  un- 
til it  pleases  the  gods  to  smile  on  us — or  we  can  forget 
it.  There's  no  other  way,  beyond  those  three." 

"I  can't  forget." 

"Girl   bothering  you?"   he   asked   sympathetically. 

"Yes." 

"Gone  very  far?" 

"I'm  engaged,"  I  admitted. 

"I  can't  advise  you ;  I'm  not  fool  enough  for  that.  It's 
your  own  problem.  You  can  marry  now,  and  scrub  along 
as  best  you  can,  or  you  can  put  it  off  until  you're  finan- 
cially fit.  It  won't  be  pleasant,  either  way.  Nor  easy." 

Joy  failed  to  help  me,  save  by  reducing  my  problem 
to  a  clear  statement.  As  I  rode  home  I  tried  to  think  of 
some  other  way  out  and  failed  to  find  it.  I  had  my  choice 
of  three  courses — of  two,  for  it  was  impossible  to  forget. 
To  live  like  Kendricks  was  impossible;  there  was  no 
course  open  but  waiting. 

It  comes  back  to  me  now  that  one  of  the  absurdities 
which  Graves  and  Langdon  and  I  had  cooked  up  between 
us  was  a  scheme  for  tagging  people  according  to  their 
characteristics.  I  remember  that  we  decided  on  a  "No 
Passing"  sign  for  one  of  the  instructors  who  was  a  no- 
torious hard  marker;  another  label  was  a  "To  Let"  pla- 
card, to  be  stenciled  on  the  forehead  of  a  persistent 
flunker;  still  another  was  the  "II  est  defendu  de  cracker'' 
which  we  sewed  to  the  overalls  of  our  Canuck  janitor, 
who  spluttered  when  he  talked. 

There  was  one  sign  which  we  failed  to  place — "Pity 
the  Blind."  I  should  have  gone  home  with  that  sign  hung 
about  my  neck.  Pity  the  Blind. 

But  still — if  we  were  all  tagged  as  we  should  be,  how 
many  of  us  would  wear  those  three  words ! 


110  FLOOD  TIDE 


m 

For  the  rest  of  the  week  I  lived  in  blank  despair.  I 
could  imagine  no  future  for  myself  save  one  filled  with 
denial  and  failure  and  Kendricksism.  As  an  added  in- 
ducement to  moroseness,  in  two  days  I  received  three  wed- 
ding announcements  from  fellows  I  had  known  at  col- 
lege, three  fat,  stiff-enveloped  insults.  I  went  home  on 
Sunday  in  a  black  mood  of  depression. 

And  Elizabeth  laughed  at  me. 

"Don't  be  foolish,"  she  said. 

"Perhaps  you  think  it  would  be  fun  to  live  in  Ken- 
dricks's  way,"  I  said  bitterly. 

"I  don't,"  she  answered.  "And  I  won't  live  that  way. 
And —  -"  she  hesitated  endearingly — "I  don't  think  that 
I'll  have  to." 

The  clouds  lifted  a  little. 

"But  you're  so  silly,"  she  went  on.  "You've  been  work- 
ing only  six  months  and  all  this  because  Hatherly  hasn't 
taken  you  into  partnership !" 

"That's  not  it,  Bess.  I  might  stay  there  six  years  and 
not  get  ahead." 

"You  might,"  she  agreed.  She  thought  for  a  moment. 
"But  isn't  it  a  good  deal  like  college,  after  all?  You  used 
to  tell  me  about  taking  up  new  courses — how  you  and 
your  precious  Jerry  Graves  would  plot  out  the  whole 
thing,  get  a  good  idea  of  the  entire  course  and  then  pick 
up  the  details  as  you  went  along.  Wouldn't  that  be  a 
good  idea  at  Hatherly's?" 

"Perhaps,"  I  conceded  reluctantly.  But  I  was  loath 
to  discard  my  pessimism.  "I've  a  notion  to  try  some- 
thing else,  though,"  I  went  on. 

"Don't,"  she  said  sharply.     "I've  seen  that — 

I  understood  that  she  referred  to  her  father.  "I'll 
hang  on,"  I  promised. 

I  came  back  to  work  still  in  the  dumps.  But  Eliza- 
beth had  given  me  a  new  view  of  my  apparent  failure. 


FLOOD  TIDE  111 

I  began  to  work  methodically  instead  of  by  blind  in- 
spiration. No  Jew  ever  worked  harder  than  I  did  during 
the  months  that  followed — I  say  it  in  all  seriousness^  for 
I  have  good  reason  to  respect  the  race.  Where  my  work 
overlapped  that  of  others  I  extended  the  boundaries; 
where  I  was  isolated  I  tried  to  fill  in  the  gaps  and  come 
in  touch  with  all  branches  of  the  business.  I  developed 
orderly  habits.  I  remember  that  I  even  went  so  far  as 
to  make  out  a  weekly  schedule  with  every  hour  accounted 
for.  A  sense  of  humor  kept  me  from  following  it,  how- 
ever. I  struck  up  a  friendship  with  a  clerk  of  my  own 
age  at  Whiting's,  a  rival  house,  a  man  in  almost  the  same 
fix  as  myself.  We  compared  methods  and  means  used  in 
our  two  houses,  criticized,  weighed,  and  ultimately  got 
a  fairly  clear  idea  of  the  whole  business  through  our 
contrast.  I  began  to  read  again,  not  the  stuff  I  had 
read  in  college,  but  books  on  business  procedure,  sales- 
manship and  technical  stuff  of  that  sort.  The  literature 
of  business  was  in  its  infancy  then,  but  such  as  it  was  I 
read  all  I  could  get  my  hands  on.  I  dipped  into  ac- 
counting and  succeeded  in  understanding  enough  of  it  to 
help  me;  I  even  read  law  for  a  time,  until  I  realized  that 
I  was  wasting  my  time.  I  really  worked  as  hard  then 
as  I  did  during  the  later  years  of  The  Stores,  although 
it  was  blind  work  and  in  many  ways  diffused  and  misdi- 
rected. And  the  queerest  part  of  it  was  that  I  enjoyed 
it.  Where  it  would  end  I  had  no  idea,  but  I  had  a  feel- 
ing that  at  least  I  was  getting  somewhere.  I  had  begun 
to  realize  that  results  follow  work  instead  of  coming 
with  it. 

As  ever,  with  knowledge  came  imagination.  I  had 
once  dreamed  over  the  Divina  Commedia  and  Gautier's 
Voyage  en  Espagne;  I  now  saw  visions  through  the  pages 
of  the  Business  Guide  and  Boyd's  Handbook  of  Calcu- 
lations. I  began  to  look  ahead  and  search  out  possibili- 
ties, I  began  to  theorize  and  carry  things  ahead  into  the 
future.  I  think  that  before  this  I  had  regarded  the  whole- 


112  FLOOD  TIDE 

sale  business  solely  as  a  means  of  making  money;  as  I 
increased  my  knowledge  I  realized  that  imagination  may 
find  expression  in  terms  of  groceries  as  well  as  in  dis- 
tant lands,  railroads  and  French  literature. 

I  began  to  keep  track  of  these  theories  of  mine,  set- 
ting them  down  in  an  old  college  notebook  which  I  brought 
down  from  home,  correlating  and  rearranging  them  and 
gradually  weaving  them  together.  I  shall  come  back  to 
this  notebook  later;  it  was  the  foundation  of  many 
things.  Where  before  I  had  theorized  and  forgotten,  I 
now  dreamed  and  remembered.  I  found  it  a  great  help 
to  reduce  theories  and  questions  to  black  and  white. 

I  had  dreams  of  another  sort  which  defy  reduction  to 
black  and  white  even  now.  I  cannot  tell  you  what  I 
thought  of  Bess  during  this  period.  We  all  experience 
this  intense  formless  desire.  If  you  have  not  gone  through 
it  no  words  of  mine  can  make  it  clear  to  you ;  if  you  have 
— and  I  put  trust  in  that — you  know,  and  nothing  that 
I  might  say  would  make  it  more  clear  to  you.  I  might 
go  on  for  pages,  and  unless  by  some  happy  chance  I 
touched  upon  some  connection  with  your  own  experience 
you  would  be  no  wiser  than  before.  It  is  as  common  as 
birth  and  death,  and  just  as  indescribable. 

I  thought  of  two  things  only,  business  and  Bess,  and 
at  times  it  was  a  question  which  subject  engrossed  the 
greater  part  of  my  thoughts.  Breakfast  and  dinner  in 
the  stuffy  dining  room  of  the  boarding  house  gave  me 
visions  of  another  table  with  Bess  across  from  me,  in- 
stead of  the  wrinkled  countenance  of  old  Eames  as  he 
demonstrated  the  new  patent  hoist  in  Warehouse  3  with 
two  spoons  and  a  knife.  Then  the  displays  in  the  store 
windows — "Bess  would  like  that,"  I  would  think,  and 
squint  at  the  price  mark.  Or  perhaps  she  wouldn't  like 
it.  When  a  person  is  always  present  in  the  back  of  one's 
mind  it  takes  very  little  to  bring  her  to  the  front — a 
word  caught  from  the  passing  crowd,  or  perhaps  a  couple 


FLOOD  TIDE  113 

wandering  together  in  the  Common  as  you  go  home  over 
Beacon  Hill  in  the  twilight. 

IV 

One  memory  which  gives  me  trouble  is  the  fact  that 
my  love  for  Bess  was  stronger  when  she  was  absent  than 
when  she  was  present.  Absent,  she  was  wholly  desirable; 
present — I  am  afraid  that  at  times  I  was  almost  indif- 
ferent. 

Perhaps  this  was  because  we  quarreled.  We  disagreed 
inevitably ;  I  try  to  recall  a  single  trip  home  during  which 
we  failed  to  squabble  over  something  or  other  and  I  fail 
in  the  attempt.  I  try  to  remember  why  we  quarreled  and 
fail  in  that  also.  I  always  went  home  gladly,  in  a  fine 
fever  of  anticipation;  I  always  came  back  bewildered  and 
angry,  wondering  why  we  found  it  so  impossible  to  agree 
and  never  solving  the  question.  In  time  I  came  to  ac- 
cept it  as  the  natural  state  of  affairs,  but  I  was  always 
somewhat  hurt  and  bewildered  and  puzzled.  I  never  put 
my  finger  on  the  real  cause  of  our  many  quarrels,  I 
never  went  deep  enough  for  that. 

These  quarrels  seem  pitifully  childish  as  I  look  back 
on  them.  We  fought  over  the  smallest  things.  We  were 
never  in  the  same  mood.  Sometimes  I  came  home  in  a 
mood  of  expansive  futurism;  "Oh,  that!"  she  would  say 
as  I  propounded  some  new  scheme.  "I  thought  you'd 
forgotten  that  weeks  ago."  Or  she  would  listen  in  a  half- 
hearted way  and  then  retail  some  petty  town  gossip  in- 
stead of  commenting  on  my  plans.  Then  I  would  sulk. 
Usually  I  sulked  and  she  flared  up.  If  I  criticized,  my 
taste  was  derided.  An  innocent  but  unfortunate  remark 
of  mine  about  an  old  bicycle  which  she  had  acquired  led 
to  one  of  our  more  serious  quarrels.  No  doubt  I  was 
very  clumsy  at  times.  My  explanations  only  made  mat- 
ters worse ;  "I'm  sorry  that  I  don't  please  you,"  she  would 
say,  and  after  a  time  I  tired  of  explaining  that  she  did 


114  FLOOD  TIDE 

please  me.  Sometimes  I  suspect  that  she  quarreled  from 
sheer  nervousness.  They  were  all  petty  differences,  but 
little  things  can  be  most  damnably  irritating. 

I  say  that  I  cannot  remember  the  causes  of  these  quar- 
rels. I  can  remember  the  cause  of  one,  and  I'm  not  sure 
that  it  wasn't  the  cause  of  more  than  one.  I  worried 
over  it  then ;  T  am  still  faintly  puzzled  by  it. 

I  am  puzzled  because  even  now  I  am  not  sure  how  large 
a  part  the  cause  of  it  should  play  in  this  story.  I  begin 
to  appreciate  that  I  have  been  selfish  all  my  life;  per- 
haps I  am  pursuing  my  usual  policy  in  filling  the  double 
role  of  hero  and  villain.  .  .  .  But  what  mistakes  I  have 
made  have  been  my  own  fault.  As  I  plan  it,  Learoyd  is 
a  sort  of  subsidiary  villain;  he  appears,  accomplishes  his 
fell  purpose,  and  then  disappears.  Even  the  accompani- 
ment of  shivery  music  is  denied  him.  Assuredly  I  am 
selfish. 

I  remember  that  I  had  wanted  to  go  driving  that 
Sunday  afternoon.  Bess  had  objected;  it  was  too  hot 
and  dusty.  I  had  suggested  that  we  borrow  the  Lily  Lou 
and  go  sailing;  she  had  objected  to  that  and  given  no 
reason.  There  was  only  one  method  of  locomotion  left 
— that  of  walking. 

"That's  better  than  staying  here,"  she  agreed  indiffer- 
ently. 

Our  walk  led  us  by  devious  ways  to  Coulter's  wharf,  the 
summer  gathering  place  of  the  Fire  Worshipers.  It  was 
quiet  and  pleasant  here,  despite  a  somewhat  overpow- 
ering odor  of  fish,  and  we  had  the  place  to  ourselves.  On 
Sundays  the  captains  and  mates  remained  at  home, 
swathed  in  the  New  England  Sabbath  and  the  unaccus- 
tomed glories  of  stiff  shirts.  Faintly  across  the  harbor 
came  a  hum  of  conversation  from  the  yacht  club  landing, 
with  an  occasional  burst  of  laughter;  counteracting  and 
frowning  upon  this  came  the  drone  of  a  hymn  from  the 
Methodist  chapel  on  Blake  Street.  We  listened  and 
talked  intermittently.  Bess  amused  herself  by  criticizing 


FLOOD  TIDE  115 

my  tastes  in  neckties ;  I  wore  a  particularly  vehement  one 
that  day,  a  combination  of  Scotch  plaid  and  Italian  sun- 
set with  purple  thunderbolts  as  a  minor  motif.  They 
don't  make  ties  like  that  now.  One  of  the  lost  arts,  I 
suppose. 

Then,  shattering  the  hush  and  startling  the  drowsing 
gulls  into  awkward,  ungainly  flappings,  there  came  the 
puff  and  roar  of  escaping  steam  from  the  float  before 
the  club.  One  of  the  launches  there  sprang  into  life  and 
stole  off  down  the  harbor,  a  slim,  graceful  shape  with  a 
glittering  brass  funnel  above  the  gayly  striped  awning. 
We  watched  it  idly  as  it  slid  slowly  along,  turned,  and 
began  to  pick  its  way  toward  us  down  the  harbor  among 
the  anchored  craft,  like  a  fine  lady  with  skirts  nipped  be- 
tween two  fingers  passing  disdainfully  among  these  blunt- 
bowed  and  prosaic  craft.  In  the  bow  was  a  figure  in  white 
duck;  as  the  launch  drew  abreast  of  us  and  straightened 
out  in  the  open  channel  the  figure  turned  toward  us  and 
waved  one  arm  in  greeting.  Bess  waved  in  answer.  The 
long  buff  shape  swerved  in  hesitation,  as  though  to  circle 
about  to  the  wharf,  then  straightened  out  again;  there 
was  a  louder  burst  of  steam,  a  blacker  cloud  poured  from 
the  funnel,  and  she  gathered  speed  suddenly,  settling  down 
on  her  stern  and  building  up  a  steady  arch  of  spray  on 
either  side  of  the  bow. 

"Isn't  she  a  beauty?"  asked  Bess. 

"Indeed  she  is,"  I  agreed.  "But  it's  not  good  form  to 
wave  at  strangers — when  I'm  around." 

"I  don't,"  she  denied.     "He's  not  a  stranger." 

"A  friend  of  yours,  then?" 

"Phil  Learoyd.    You  know  I  don't  wave  at  strangers." 

"I  don't  know  him,"  I  said  shortly. 

"But  I  do.  He's  Mr.  Bradford's  nephew,"  she  ex- 
plained with  equal  shortness.  Then  her  tone  changed. 
"You  ought  to  have  a  boat  like  that." 

"On  twelve  a  week?  He  probably  pays  his  fireman 
more  than  that.  But  there  are  lots  of  things  I  ought  to 


116  FLOOD  TIDE 

have;  unfortunately  I  have  to  earn  them."  Surely  the 
devil  was  in  me.  "She's  quite  an  improvement  on  the  old 
Shadow — or  the  Lily  Lou,  for  that  matter." 

"Oh,  stuff !"  she  exclaimed  inelegantly.  "You  always 
twist  my  meaning." 

"I'm  a  poor  interpreter,  I  know." 

Bess  displayed  storm  signals.  "I  hope  you  don't 
think— 

"Did  I  say  anything?"  I  defended,  knowing  very  well 
that  I  had. 

"You  insinuated." 

"Don't  be  so  sensitive,  Bess." 

She  sniffed  and  was  silent. 

I  was  curious.  "I  don't  seem  to  place  this — what  was 
his  name?  Learoyd?  Funny  name;  can't  say  that  I 
like  it.  Have  you  known  him  very  long?" 

"I  must  start  a  diary,"  she  said  dryly.  "Then  I  can 
submit  it  to  you  every  Sunday.  It  will  save  you  lots  of 
worry." 

"But  Learoyd "  I  persisted. 

"You  seem  very  interested,"  she  commented  with  as- 
sumed indifference.  "He  invited  Joan  Hamilton  and  me 
to  go  out  with  him  this  afternoon,  if  you  must  know." 

"You  should  have  mentioned  it  before.  I  could  have 
gone  back  to  town  as  well  as  not  this  afternoon,  you 
know." 

"I  wish  you  had.  But  you  see  I  couldn't  very  well  ask 
you  to  go." 

I  had  the  grace  to  remain  silent.  What  a  devil  of  an 
old  world  it  was !  A  fellow  worked  all  week,  slaved  and 
sat  up  until  midnight  planning — and  then  came  home  to 
stage  a  cat  and  dog  act  with  the  best  girl  in  the  world. 
I  gazed  morosely  out  over  the  harbor  and  wondered  if 
life  was  worth  living  after  all. 

"Well,  why  don't  you  go?"  Bess  asked.  "It's  not  too 
late."  But  she  smiled  as  she  said  it,  and  the  sun  shone 
again. 


FLOOD  TIDE  117 

"You  know  why  I  don't  go,"  I  answered.  "I  can't. 
Let's  forget  it,  Bess." 

"Forgotten  it  is,  then,"  she  said  readily.  "I  like  to  fight 
with  you  because  you  get  so  red.  Now  Phil  never  fights." 

"Oh,  confound  Phil!"  I  made  a  mental  bet  that  I 
could  lick  the  tar  out  of  Phil,  and  would,  if  I  heard  much 
more  of  him. 

The  waves  raised  by  the  passage  of  the  launch  had  just 
reached  us,  slapping  and  gurgling  among  the  piles  below 
and  causing  the  masts  of  the  anchored  fleet  to  trace  slow 
arches  against  the  sky;  in  so  short  a  time  had  the  little 
tempest  raised  by  her  passage  raged  and  fallen  calm 
again. 

Learoyd  and  I  met  soon  after  that  and  failed  to  come 
to  blows.  He  was  a  slightly  built  chap,  not  any  too  good 
looking,  but  with  a  ready  smile  which  disarmed  my  na- 
scent antagonism.  He  was  a  sort  of  protege  of  his 
uncle's — hence  the  launch — and  when  I  learned  that  he 
was  working  in  a  Boston  banking  house  for  two-thirds  of 
my  own  salary  the  last  shreds  of  my  suspicion  vanished. 
The  only  thing  to  his  discredit  was  the  fact  that  he  was 
a  Harvard  man.  .  .  . 

I  liked  Learoyd,  although  undoubtedly  I  shouldn't 
have. 

Perhaps  you  fail  to  understand  the  real  cause  of  trouble 
between  Bess  and  myself.  You  may  expect  a  personal 
villain,  as  folks  once  believed  in  a  personal  devil,  hoof, 
horns,  tail  and  all.  I  believe  in  an  impersonal  devil,  and 
the  impersonal  devil  in  this  case  was  my  own  imagination, 
not  Learoyd. 

You  see,  Bess  and  I  were  alike  in  many  characteristics, 
and  yet  strangely  unlike  in  the  same  things.  We  were 
both  dreamers,  in  common  with  all  youth.  I  owe  much 
of  the  growth  of  my  imagination  to  my  father's  influ- 
ence ;  I  think  the  same  holds  true  of  Bess. 

There  the  resemblance  ends — abruptly.  Bess  had  been 
disillusioned.  Her  father  had  dreamed  dreams  and  seen 


118  FLOOD  TIDE 

visions  and  his  life  from  first  to  last  had  been  an  abortive 
effort  to  bring  his  vision  to  reality.  Through  his  failure 
Bess  had  come  to  distrust  all  dreams,  to  exalt  practicality 
and  regard  imagination  as  a  sign  of  weakness.  It  was 
a  logical  and  inevitable  conclusion.  I  have  no  way  of  de- 
termining her  definition  of  success  at  this  time,  save  that 
it  must  have  fceen  diametrically  opposed  to  my  own  defi- 
nition. I  saw  failure  as  the  grasping  of  present  and  ma- 
terial ends ;  failure  meant  the  denial  of  the  future — and, 
by  corollary,  success  was  the  denial  of  to-day  for  the 
possibilities  of  to-morrow. 

In  contrast  to  Bess,  I  had  known  no  disillusion.  Bess 
had  come  to  demand  practical  results ;  I  was  still  content 
with  possibilities — which  I  called  inevitabilities.  These 
creations  of  my  mind  would  inevitably  come  into  being 
with  time.  Bess  had  seen  an  endless  succession  of  her 
father's  sawdust-stuffed  kings  and  queens  stripped  of 
their  finery  and  consigned  to  the  ashbarrel,  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  other  creations  no  more  real,  but  possessing 
the  beauty  of  novelty.  She  had  seen  the  stage  of  imagi- 
nation in  its  naked  reality,  with  its  pasteboard  clouds  and 
castles  acknowledging  their  artificiality  in  the  shameless 
light  of  failure.  She  was  "half-sick  of  shadows,"  my  own 
as  well  as  those  of  others.  I  had  the  realitjr  of  work; 
she  had  nothing  but  the  dissatisfaction  of  inaction. 

I  think  that  in  a  shadowy  way  I  was  aware  of  this  dif- 
ference even  then.  Bess  was  pleased  when  I  settled  down 
to  work;  I  remember  that  I  was  more  than  a  little  puz- 
zled by  her  sudden  kindness  and  unwilling  to  admit  that 
I  knew  the  cause  of  it.  It  must  have  been  this  same  par- 
tial appreciation  which  kept  me  from  speaking  of  the 
futures  which  I  had  discovered  in  the  wholesale  business. 
I  spoke  of  them,  but  spoke  vaguely.  I  remember  that  I 
made  the  excuse  that  I  wanted  to  surprise  her. 

My  optimism  and  futurism  must  have  been  an  ever 
present  source  of  irritation  to  Bess.  It  was  the  cause  of 
all  these  minor  differences ;  they  were  smoothed  over  and 


FLOOD  TIDE  119 

ignored  as  soon  as  possible,  but  they  left  tiny  shafts  of 
discord  sticking  in  our  memories. 


I  had  been  at  Hatherly's  over  a  year  before  rumors  of 
a  change  began  to  circulate  about  the  place.  Like  most 
rumors,  these  were  round-robin  affairs ;  no  one  had  started 
them,  every  one  had  heard  the  news  from  some  one  else, 
and  every  one  had  his  own  special  brand  of  rumor.  We 
were  going  to  merge  with  the  Kingsley  Company ;  we 
were  to  sell  out  to  a  New  York  house;  Hatherly  was  go- 
ing to  abandon  the  business,  close  up  shop,  and  leave  us 
all  to  scrub  along  as  best  we  could. 

"And  then  where'll  we  be?"  queried  Carr  gloomily.  "I 
tell  you  I'm  not  going  to  stay  to  find  out."  But  inas- 
much as  Carr  worked  himself  up  to  the  point  of  giving 
notice  every  six  weeks — and  never  did — his  opinion  was 
discounted. 

Hatherly's  actions  gave  some  color  of  truth  to  these 
rumors.  He  made  frequent  trips  to  New  York,  to  the 
vast  interest  of  the  lunch  hour  meetings  in  the  boiler 
room.  Carr  became  more  dismally  prophetic  than  ever, 
finally  resigned,  and  was  told  not  to  make  a  dam'  fool 
of  himself.  Kendricks,  maddened  by  Carr's  persistent  in- 
sinuations, screwed  up  courage  enough  to  ask  Hatherly 
how  things  were  in  New  York.  He  received  the  informa- 
tion that  they  had  "funny  weather"  down  there. 

These  vague  rumors  had  other  results  beyond  giving 
us  something  to  talk  about.  A  closer  application  to  work 
became  evident.  Men  who  had  made  a  point  of  showing 
independence  by  coming  in  at  quarter  past  eight  were 
now  at  their  desks  ahead  of  time ;  instead  of  skipping  out 
ahead  of  time  they  dawdled  during  the  afternoon  and 
made  a  great  parade  of  staying  overtime.  Hatherly  was 
consulted  frequently  about  minor  matters,  to  his  great 
annoyance.  I  suppose  the  idea  was  to  attract  his  at- 


120  FLOOD  TIDE 

tention  to  the  unflagging  zeal  with  which  the  work  was 
being  carried  on ;  if  there  was  a  change  coming  that  seeemd 
a  certain  way  of  securing  promotion — or  of  avoiding  be- 
ing fired.  Perhaps  the  latter  was  the  real  incentive. 

Then  Hatherly,  as  Carr  expressed  it,  went  "stark,  star- 
ing, raving  mad."  He  came  back  from  a  particularly 
long  absence  and  shook  up  the  entire  establishment. 

We  were  moved  about  from  one  department  to  another 
without  apparent  reason  and  with  much  resultant  con- 
fusion. The  old  orderly  progression  of  seniority  was 
broken  up,  save  in  a  few  minor  instances ;  Carr,  who  had 
been  on  the  books  for  five  years,  threatened  again  to  leave 
when  he  was  transferred  to  the  stock-keeper's  desk;  Ken- 
dricks  went  on  the  books  and  lost  ten  pounds  before  he 
got  back  to  his  old  job  again.  The  indignation  meeting 
in  the  boiler  room  during  the  noon  hour  became  anar- 
chistic in  tone. 

I  really  enjoyed  these  frequent  changes  of  employment. 
They  made  a  welcome  break  in  the  monotony.  Where 
before  I  had  tried  to  understand  the  work  of  others  from 
the  outside  I  now  had  a  chance  to  try  it  for  myself. 
Thanks  to  my  inquiries,  I  already  had  a  fairly  complete 
knowledge  of  these  other  jobs;  when  I  went  to  a  strange 
part  of  the  warehouse  I  not  only  increased  my  knowledge 
of  that  particular  part  of  the  work  but  also  tried  to 
improve  on  what  I  found.  I  made  changes  to  suit  myself, 
simplified  matters  after  my  own  ideas.  Then,  as  the  next 
shift  came,  I  had  to  explain  things  to  the  man  who  fol- 
lowed me.  I  remember  that  when  Gardiner  came  back 
to  his  old  position  of  stockman  on  the  second  floor  he 
first  sighed  in  relief  at  getting  back  to  something  he  un- 
derstood and  then  bellowed  in  agony  as  he  found  his  cher- 
ished methods  supplanted  by  strange  ones. 

One  of  the  things  I  put  through  was  the  printing  of 
our  minor  quotations  on  return  post  cards,  instead  of 
the  single  cards  which  we  had  used  before,  a  change  which 


FLOOD  TIDE  121 

cut  down  the  printer's  bill  appreciably.  Hatherly  discov- 
ered this. 

"Who  done  this?"  he  queried,  waving  one  of  the  cards. 

Blake,  who  happened  to  be  nearest  him,  squinted  at 
the  offending  pasteboard  and  jerked  his  thumb  toward 
me. 

"Coffin,"  he  said  dryly. 

"So?     This  yours,  boy?" 

I  admitted  my  guilt  and  handed  him  the  printer's  bills 
for  the  past  two  months.  He  stared  at  them,  cleared  his 
throat  as  he  calculated  the  saving,  and  then  grunted  his 
approval. 

"Good.  But  apt  to  mess  'em  in  tearing  'em,"  he  quali- 
fied. "Better  use  those  big  paper  shears." 

During  this  period  of  shifting  he  was  alert  for  any 
change,  eternally  buzzing  about  from  one  part  of  the 
building  to  another,  questioning,  suggesting,  criticizing, 
and  explaining.  Ultimately  most  of  the  older  men  got 
back  to  their  original  positions  and  stayed  there,  after 
having  proved  themselves  hopelessly  unable  to  grasp  new 
conditions  and  strange  requirements.  But  I  still  came 
to  work  every  morning  uncertain  whether  I  would  be  sent 
out  collecting  or  assigned  to  help  Jenkins  get  out  the 
statements. 

Wherever  I  was  sent  I  was  sure  of  one  thing.  At  some 
time  of  the  day  Hatherly  would  surely  come  around. 

"How  they  coming  now?"  he  would  ask  jerkily.  "All 
right?  Eh?  Lessee  what  you're  doing." 

Sometimes  he  was  pleased,  more  frequently  he  was  not. 
I  had  many  arguments  with  him. 


VI 

These  rumors  persisted  so  long  without  proof  that 
they  were  anything  more  than  rumors  that  at  last  I  lost 
all  faith  in  them.  If  Hatherly  had  ever  had  anything 
in  mind  it  had  failed.  I  worked  on  as  usual,  carried  on 


122  FLOOD  TIDE 

by  inertia  and  received  one  advance  in  salary.  This 
brought  me  almost  into  Kendricks's  class.  There  were 
times  when  I  saw  the  whole  business  of  life  in  the  darkest 
possible  colors,  but  I  had  found  work  an  antidote  for  these 
and  they  seldom  lasted  long. 

I  came  to  work  one  Monday  morning  in  the  midst  of 
an  unusually  black  cloud.  I  had  been  home  over  Sun- 
day, and,  as  ever,  Bess  and  I  had  quarreled  over  some- 
thing or  other,  some  petty  little  difference  which  was  not 
important  in  itself  but  was  enough  to  send  me  off  out  of 
tune  with  everything.  I  overslept  that  morning  and 
wandered  into  Hatherly's  an  hour  late;  whether  school 
kept  or  not  was  a  matter  of  no  moment  to  me.  I  had  spent 
the  preceding  week  in  planning  out  a  new  method  of  keep- 
ing track  of  orders ;  Hatherly  had  looked  it  over  on 
Saturday  and  condemned  it  because  of  the  initial  expendi- 
ture. I  seemed  doomed  to  go  on  without  end,  building 
up  things  for  others  to  knock  over,  and  ultimately  ending 
where  I  had  begun. 

"The  Old  Man  has  been  after  your  scalp  this  morn- 
ing," said  Sam  Carr.  "He's  asked  for  you  four  times 
and  more." 

"Did  he  say  what  he  wanted?"  I  asked  without  interest. 

Carr  shook  his  head. 

"No  idea.     Probably  wants  your  advice  on  something." 

"Confounded  old  nuisance,"  I  said,  shedding  my  coat. 
"I  may  have  to  fire  him  after  all." 

Carr  looked  up  with  a  grin  and  started  to  answer ;  his 
face  changed  suddenly  and  horribly.  I  turned,  and  found 
Hatherly  behind  me. 

"Got  here,  did  you?"  he  asked  grimly.  "Looking  for 
you.  Think  you're  working  in  a  bank?  Who's  this  you're 
going  to  fire?" 

"My  valet,"  I  answered  smoothly.  "He  didn't  get  me 
up  on  time  this  morning." 

He  glared  at  me  for  an  awful  moment.  Carr  went  off 


FLOOD  TIDE  123 

into  a  paroxysm  of  coughing  which  left  him  purple  be- 
hind the  ears. 

"Humph !"  he  snorted  finally.  "Want  to  see  you.  Come 
on." 

I  marched  away  behind  him ;  over  my  shoulder  I  caught 
a  glimpse  of  Carr,  looking  after  me  with  his  mouth  open 
— as  though  he  had  been  caught  midway  in  enunciating 
the  word  "Fired!"  The  others  looked  around  as  I  passed 
behind  them;  only  old  Jenkins  failed  to  take  any  interest 
in  my  passage.  I  felt  remarkably  like  a  victim  led  to 
slaughter,  and  at  the  same  time  I  didn't  care.  Fired  or 
not,  it  made  no  difference  to  me. 

I  felt  less  comfortable  when  the  door  of  the  inner  office 
closed  behind  us.  It  was  a  big  barn  of  a  room,  this  inner 
sanctum,  and  I  never  felt  quite  at  ease  there.  I  stood 
shifting  from  foot  to  foot  while  Hatherly  creaked  to  and 
fro  in  his  swivel  chair.  I  wished  that  he'd  hurry  and 
have  it  over  with. 

"Siddown,"  he  said  suddenly,  and  motioned  me  to  a 
chair  facing  him.  "Y'know,  I've  been  watching  your  work 
lately." 

I  knew  it.  He  fixed  me  with  a  shrewd  and  speculative 
eye;  I  made  motions  of  answering  and  found  my  throat 
unexpectedly  dry.  But  he  decided  to  postpone  the  blow. 

"General  opinion  is  that  I'm  crazy,  ain't  it?"  he  said, 
with  a  wave  toward  the  outer  office.  "Shifting  you  peo- 
ple around  and  making  a  hurrah's  nest  of  the  place? 
Huh?  Well,  I'm  not;  not  by  a  long  shot." 

Before  I  could  shift  my  helm  to  follow  him  he  was  off 
on  another  tack. 

"You  been  New  York,  Coffin?     Eh?" 

"Once,"  I  admitted,  and  by  sheer  hypnosis  I  dropped 
into  his  clipped  fashion  of  speech.  "Football  game — 
three  years  ago — stayed  over  one  night." 

"Know  the  place  like  a  book,  I  suppose?" 

I  detected  a  humorous  cast  among  the  wrinkles  about 
his  eyes.  Perhaps  Carr  had  made  a  bad  guess,  after  all. 


124  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Hardly,"  I  answered.  "Not  much  chance  to  look 
around.  Had  a  headache — from  the  car  smoke." 

He  actually  smiled.     Then  he  frowned  ferociously. 

"I — er-r,  the  house  has  bought  out  Brown  Brothers, 
down  there.  Ever  hear  of  them?"  he  asked  abruptly. 

I  admitted  my  ignorance  and  all  thoughts  of  being  fired 
passed  out  of  my  mind.  - 

"Thought  not,"  .he  said,  with  a  note  of  satisfaction. 
"Small  house — old— dry  rot.  Didn't  expect  it,  did  you? 
Surprise  you?  Eh?" 

"There's  been  a  rumor —    -"  I  began. 

"I  know;  can't  keep  'em  from  talking,"  he  said  impa- 
tiently. "None  of  their  business,  but  they  know  more 
about  it  than  I  do.  How  would  you  like  to  go  down 
there?" 

"You  mean  to  take  charge?"  I  asked,  my  head  in  a 
whirl. 

He  stared  at  me  a  moment. 

"Not  so  fast,  not  so  fast,"  he  said.  "That's  Jenkins's 
j  ob.  You'll  go  with  him — if  you  want  to.  Help  him  along 
— big  job  for  one  man.  Jenkins  is — pretty  old,  you  know. 
Hide-bound.  Good  man,  but  slow.  .  .  .  Well?" 

"Glad  of  the  chance,  sir,"  I  managed  to  say. 

"All  right,  then,"  he  said,  and  was  inspired  to  a  sud- 
den burst  of  confidence.  "Had  my  eye  on  you  quite  a 
while.  Don't  like  college  men,  as  a  rule ;  changed  my  opin- 
ion. Always  asking  'why?'  You  and  Jenkins  make  a 
good  team,  I  think;  wouldn't  trust  either  of  you  alone. 
Jenkins  is — conservative.  Knows  the  business,  though, 
better  than  either  you  or  I.  You're  the  counter-weight. 
See?  Keep  the  clock  steady.  What?" 

I  stumbled  over  some  sounds  which  were  intended  to 
express  my  appreciation  of  the  chance.  He  stopped  me. 

"No  thanks;  you'll  be  on  trial.  Nothing  permanent 
about  it.  Make  good  or  come  back.  I'm  going  down 
with  you — next  week,  say ;  give  you  a  start.  After  that 
• — on  your  own  feet.  Better  see  Jenkins ;  lots  he  can  tell 


FLOOD  TIDE  125 

you.  You  don't  know  it  all  yet.  See  the  both  of  you 
to-night.  Talk  it  over  then.  That's  all." 

He  turned  back  to  his  desk,  then  swung  around  as  I 
still  lingered. 

"Well?"  he  said. 

"I'd  like  an  hour  or  so  off,"  I  explained. 

"Whaffor?"  he  asked  suspiciously. 

"If  I  cheer  and  carry  on  around  here " 

He  caught  the  contagion  of  my  grin. 

"Get  out  of  here,"  he  growled,  and  dismissed  me  with 
a  lordly  gesture. 

vn 

By  some  superhuman  effort  I  managed  to  keep  from 
cheering.  I  even  tried  to  look  solemn  as  I  closed  the  door 
and  was  successful  in  the  effort  until  the  sight  of  Carr's 
questioning  and  commiserating  face  sent  me  off  into  an 
absurd  grin  which  obscured  my  eyes  and  lifted  my  ears. 
I  couldn't  have  kept  in  very  long,  for  Jenkins  gave  it 
away  by  publicly  congratulating  me.  We  spent  the  rest 
of  the  day  together,  Jenkins  and  I,  and  that  night  Hath- 
erly  took  us  home  with  him  and  we  planned  far  into  the 
night. 

In  one  other  respect  I  was  more  successful  in  self- 
repression.  I  wrote  to  Bess,  an  absurd  letter  full  of  su- 
perlatives, wrote  and  read  it  over  and  then  destroyed  it. 
I  decided  that  I  wanted  to  see  how  she  received  the  news. 
It  was  hard  work,  but  I  managed  to  hold  myself  down 
until  Saturday. 

It  was  worth  the  effort. 

"No!"  she  said,  and  surveyed  me  with  one  eyebrow 
raised  half  in  doubt  and  half  in  belief.  I  had  found  her 
kneeling  over  a  flower  bed  in  the  little  garden  behind  the 
house,  very  grubby  and  disheveled  and  stained  with 
mold. 

I  "crossed  my  throat  and  hoped  to  die."     Belief  re- 


126  FLOOD  TIDE 

placed  doubt  as  she  remained  kneeling,  looking  up  at 
me.  She  clapped  her  hands  as  she  dropped  her  trowel 
and  struggled  to  her  feet. 

"That  means "  she  said  excitedly. 

"That  I'm  not  a  failure  so  far,"  I  completed. 

"As  though  you  ever  were,"  she  smiled  in  reproach. 
"It  means  a  lot  to  you." 

"And  yourself?" 

"I  come  in  on  it,  too,"  she  admitted,  "but  I'm  glad 
because  it's  you." 

She  stared  at  me  in  sudden  dismay. 

"But  New  York!"  she  said.  "You  won't  be  home  so 
often!" 

"All  the  more  welcome  when  I  do  come,"  I  maintained 
stoutly. 

"That's  so.  ...  Does  it  pay  to  be  practical?" 

"Why — yes,"  I  answered.  This  was  a  faint  echo  of 
our  quarrel  of  the  Sunday  before.  But  I  was  far  from 
sure.  Had  I  really  been  looking  ahead  or  had  this  suc- 
cess come  from  short  sighted  application? 

"But  I  haven't  been  paid  yet,"  I  concluded. 

"Oh,  dear!"  she  wailed  a  moment  later.  "I've  rubbed 
dirt  all  over  your  coat  and  my  hair's  coming  down  and 
I  don't  dare  touch  it !" 

I  fixed  it  for  her  as  best  I  could  and  then  had  to  re- 
hearse the  whole  tale  again;  how  I  had  lost  faith  in  the 
vague  rumors  and  still  kept  on  plugging,  and  how  I  had 
fully  expected  to  be  discharged  when  Hatherly  called  me 
into  his  office. 

"He  wouldn't  dare,"  asserted  Bess  confidently. 

I  made  the  most  of  my  triumph.  Mrs.  Alden  appeared 
in  the  midst  of  my  recital  and  rather  spoiled  it  by  refus- 
ing to  enthuse. 

"That's  good."  she  said,  upon  hearing  the  news.  "Did 
you  water  the  plants,  Elizabeth?" 

"Plants?  Pooh!"  said  Bess  ungraciously.  "Go  on; 
what  did  Mr.  Hatherly  say  then?" 


FLOOD  TIDE  127 

But  Mrs.  Alden  showed  a  gradual  increase  in  warmth 
as  I  went  on,  not  a  very  satisfactory  sort  of  interest, 
to  be  sure,  but  still  better  than  indifference.  She  evinced 
an  irritating  interest  in  the  practical  side  of  my  promo- 
tion, not  quite  asking  questions  but  leaving  obvious  op- 
portunities for  a  statement  of  my  financial  condition. 
I  proved  willfully  blind  to  these  opportunities ;  to  say 
that  my  salary  would  be  the  same  as  before — which  was 
the  truth — would  have  taken  off  the  fine  edge  of  success. 
It  was  enough  for  me  that  I  had  been  promoted  to  new 
responsibilities. 

My  father  received  the  news  calmly  enough,  although 
he  was  as  happy  over  it  as  myself.  In  his  presence  I  be- 
came more  modest. 

"I'm  only  on  trial,  of  course,"  I  said  finally. 

"We're  always  on  trial,"  he  answered,  "although  some- 
times it  does  seem  that  the  jury  has  been  bribed." 

I  recall  that  he  was  a  bit  surprised  at  the  suddenness 
of  my  promotion. 

"But  you  saw  something  of  the  kind  coming,  I  suppose," 
he  concluded,  "and  when  it  came  you  were  ready  for  it." 

"It's  been  in  the  air  for  a  long  time." 

"Thought  so.  It  pays  to  look  ahead  and  imagine 
things,  doesn't  it?" 

"Why — yes,"  I  answered,  but  I  hesitated  a  little  longer 
than  I  had  in  making  the  same  answer  to  Bess's  ques- 
tion. She  said  that  it  paid  to  be  practical;  my  father 
said  that  it  paid  to  be  visionary.  One  must  be  right — • 
but  which? 

That  is  one  question  which  I  have  never  solved. 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 


HEAVEN  save  me  from  another  such  job  as  we  found 
at  Brown  Brothers ;  one  such  experience  is  enough  for  a 
lifetime.  Ever  since  then  I  have  had  a  horror  of  remak- 
ing and  remodeling.  I  date  my  first  gray  hair  from  that 
period. 

Hatherly  went  down  with  us.  I  remember  still  the  sink- 
ing of  my  heart  as  we  surveyed  the  place  from  across 
the  street;  despite  Hatherly's  warning  I  had  expected 
something  better  than  a  dingy  front  with  unwashed  win- 
dows. I  expected  that  a  New  York  house,  even  though 
afflicted  with  dry  rot,  would  surpass  a  provincial  Bos- 
ton establishment.  We  went  on  a  tour  of  inspection,  to 
an  accompaniment  of  stares  and  whispered  exchanges, 
Hatherly  very  voluble  and  cheerful  in  his  fragmentary 
way,  Jenkins  and  I  plodding  dismally  behind  him.  We 
ended  at  the  office. 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  it?"  jerked  Hatherly, 
cocking  one  leg  over  the  arm  of  his  chair. 

Jenkins  looked  at  me.  I  looked  at  Jenkins.  Words 
failed  us. 

"Out  of  date  and  all  that,"  Hatherly  went  on.  "But 
good  metal;  needs  polishing,  that's  all.  Eh?" 

Jenkins  answered  indirectly.  "Any  insurance  on  the 
place?" 

Hatherly  nodded. 

"Fully  covered?" 

"Certainly.  Think  I'm  a  fool?" 

"I'm  undecided.  In  your  place  I'd  buy  a  barrel  of 
128 


FLOOD  TIDE  129 

kerosene  and  a  box  of  matches.  Leave  the  rest  to  the 
rats — enough  of  them,  by  the  looks  of  things." 

Hatherly  snorted. 

"You'll  find  that  the  easiest  way  out,"  argued  Jenkins. 

"Oh,  not  so  bad  as  that,"  encouraged  Hatherly.  "Good 
stuff  here,  but  dusty — damned  dusty."  He  waved  his 
arm  inspiringly  and  sneezed.  "Just  dig  into  it — clean 
it  up.  You'll  be  surprised." 

That  was  all  the  satisfaction  we  got  from  him.  He 
hemmed  and  harrumphed  and  "bwey"-ed  about  for  a 
while  and  then  rushed  off  to  catch  a  train  back  to  Boston. 
We  envied  him. 

Jenkins  and  I  stared  at  each  other  in  discouragement. 

"I  never  thought  I'd  keep  a  museum  in  my  old  age,"  he 
said  finally.  "That's  what  it  is — a  confounded,  billy-be- 
damned  museum.  And  we've  lost  our  chief  freak." 

I  laughed.     "The  Old  Man?" 

"He's  in  his  second  childhood,"  said  Jenkins  viciously. 

"Well,  we're  here  and  it's  too  late  to  back  out,"  I  said. 
"Let's  go  out  and  have  another  look  at  the  wax  figures." 

Hatherly's  theory  of  counterweights  was  good  as  far 
as  it  went,  but  it  worked  out  in  a  way  which  he  scarcely 
could  have  anticipated.  Instead  of  Jenkins  acting  as  a 
check  on  me,  the  situation  was  reversed.  For  the  first 
week  or  so  Jenkins  poked  about  with  an  expression  of 
horror  on  his  fine  old  face.  Some  of  the  methods  of  busi- 
ness were  entirely  new  to  us,  others  we  had  discarded  long 
ago,  but  for  all  of  them  he  expressed  unqualified  disap- 
proval. The  conflict  between  us  came  when  we  finished 
our  survey  and  started  to  make  changes.  Jenkins's  idea 
was  to  make  the  place  conform  in  every  respect  with  the 
Boston  house. 

We  fought — good  Lord,  how  we  did  fight !  I  went  home 
at  night  with  a  sore  throat  and  argued  in  my  sleep.  Jen- 
kins wanted  to  discard  everything  with  which  he  was  un- 
familiar. I  could  see  that  a  good  many  of  the  ways  of 
doing  business  were  superior  to  the  old  way  with  which 


130  F^OOD  TIDE 

we  both  knew;  Jenkins  couldn't  see  it.  He  had  a  vast 
fund  of  reminiscence  which  served  him  in  place  of  argu- 
ment. 

"Yes,  we  tried  that  in  '89,"  he  would  assert.  "Or  was 
it  '87?  The  year  they  had  the  fire  next  door.  .  .  .  '89, 
that's  it.  Fellow  named  Humphreys  suggested  it.  It 
didn't  work  at  all,  as  I  remember  it." 

Then  I  would  expound  and  explain  until  at  last  he  gave 
in  through  sheer  weariness. 

"Try  it,  if  you  want  it,  then,"  he  would  assent.  "But 
it  didn't  work  then  and  it  won't  work  now." 

I  saw  to  it  that  it  worked  now.  It  had  to  work.  I 
was  on  trial. 

Hatherly  had  admitted  that  Brown  Brothers  was  full 
of  dry  rot.  He  hadn't  exaggerated.  It  was  the  old  story 
of  decay;  no  new  blood  and  absentee  managership.  The 
fact  that  it  held  together  at  all  was  an  ever  fresh  source 
of  wonder  to  me.  For  years  the  place  had  gone  along  in 
one  rut,  losing  customers  only  by  death  and  gaining  new 
ones  only  by  accident.  The  warehouse  was  filled  with 
pensioners ;  a  few  of  the  men  worked  and  the  rest  lived 
on  memories  of  the  good  old  days.  They  nearly  broke 
my  heart.  I  know  of  no  more  discouraging  task  than 
trying  to  inject  vitality  into  a  man  who  has  been  a  mental 
corpse  for  a  decade.  They  looked  at  me,  and  sniffed, 
and  went  on  doing  their  work  in  the  same  old  doddering 
way. 

We  had  a  grand  house  cleaning  after  the  first  month — 
that  is,  Hatherly  and  Jenkins  concocted  a  list  of  men 
who  were  obviously  useless,  then  Hatherly  took  himself 
back  to  Boston  and  Jenkins  left  it  to  me  to  do  the  firing. 
I  did  it  as  diplomatically  as  possible  and  referred  their 
wails  and  complaints  to  Jenkins.  Then  he  threw  them 
back  at  me. 

"These  gentlemen "  he  appealed,  over  the  heads  of 

the  group  which  surrounded  him.  They  all  turned  and 
looked  at  me  unfavorably. 


FLOOD  TIDE  131 

I  picked  out  one  from  among  the  group — a  man  with 
a  bay  window  and  a  shameless  nose.  "Do  you  really  need 
this  job?" 

He  was  highly  indignant  at  my  imputation  of  poverty. 

"Then  is  there  any  good  reason  why  we  should  keep 
you?" 

"I  have  been  with  this  house  for  over  twenty  years, 
young  man,"  he  snorted.  "I  brought  the  house  the  busi- 
ness of  Simpson  and  Company,  a  matter  of  forty  thou- 
sand and  year,  and — 

"And  for  the  past  five  years  they've  averaged  less  than 
four  thousand.  Why?" 

"That  is  not  my  affair." 

"I  see.     You've  been  living  on  past  performances." 

He  eyed  me  in  utter  loathing.  Then  he  turned  to  Jen- 
kins. "I  appeal  to  you,  sir,  as  one  gentleman  to  another." 
I  was  no  gentleman,  apparently. 

Poor  old  Jenkins !  He  tugged  at  his  lower  lip  and 

looked  at  me  dubiously.  "Perhaps  we  might  find "  he 

began. 

I  lost  the  last  shreds  of  my  patience.  "You  complained 
that  this  was  a  museum,"  I  reminded  him.  "Now  you 
want  to  turn  it  into  a  cripples'  home.  We're  here  to  re- 
build this  place — after  these  men  have  let  it  fall  apart. 
We  can't  rebuild  with  old  timber.  You  know  it  and  I 
know  it." 

I  went  away — magnificent — Napoleonic.    I  had  spoken. 

"I'm  sorry,  gentlemen,"  I  heard  Jenkins  say  with  new 
vigor,  "but  it  can't  be  helped." 

He  came  to  me  later,  mournfully.  "I  hate  to  fire 
people,"  he  confided.  "They  never  understand." 

"That  bunch  will  get  over  it,"  I  said,  with  the  cal- 
losity of  youth.  "None  of  them  need  to  work.  Old 
Rogers — the  one  with  the  side  whiskers — was  telling  me 
last  week  about  the  block  of  houses  he  owns.  The  rest 
are  all  like  him.  They  were  hopeless." 

"Well — we'll  see  how  things  go,"  said  Jenkins 


132  FLOOD  TIDE 

I  look  back  on  these  early  New  York  days  and  realize 
that  there  is  something  lacking.  I  suppose  I  should  say 
that  New  York  impressed  me,  that  it  inspired  my  im- 
agination. Really  it  did  nothing  of  the  sort.  During 
the  first  few  months  I  was  impressed  by  nothing  save  the 
endless  succession  of  new  problems  which  confronted  me 
at  Brown  Brothers ;  it  was  weeks  before  I  knew  anything 
of  the  city  beyond  the  way  between  the  rooming  house 
and  the  place  where  I  worked.  I  never  explored  New 
York,  as  I  had  Boston,  perhaps  because  I  had  no  Ken- 
dricks  and  Luigi  to  lead  me.  Even  later,  when  Marks 
and  I  began  to  go  about  town,  the  city  failed  to  impress 
me;  I  had  lost  the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  fallen  into  the 
habit  of  taking  things  for  granted. 

I  was  blind  to  the  inspiration  of  New  York  because  I 
had  brought  my  inspiration  with  me.  The  material  in 
the  old  note  book  which  I  had  kept  for  over  a  year  began 
to  cohere  about  one  central  idea ;  I  was  insensible  to  all 
impressions  not  directly  connected  with  it. 


The  mustering  out  of  the  Ancients  left  us  short  handed 
for  a  time ;  all  told,  we  got  rid  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  the 
force  on  the  charge  of  fossilism.  Those  who  remained 
were  up  to  the  usual  Hatherly  standard,  not  destined  to 
set  the  world  on  fire,  but  still  good  and  capable  men. 
There  were  a  few  notable  exceptions ;  Jimmy  Golderick, 
who  manifested  a  persuasive  genius  in  bringing  in  settle- 
ments of  old  accounts ;  Carter  Hayes,  that  attenuated 
live  wire  of  high  conductivity,  and  meek  little  Borden 
whose  life  long  passion  for  system  and  more  system  came 
to  the  surface  soon  after  our  advent. 

And  there  was  Marks,  of  course.  .  .  . 

That  sentence  in  itself  is  a  complete  description  of 
Marks.  He  was  in  a  class  by  himself.  Put  him  down  in 
any  group,  attempt  to  describe  the  group,  and  you  find 


FLOOD  TIDE  133 

yourself  tacking  that  on  the  end:  "And  there  was 
Marks."  He  failed  to  classify. 

I  must  have  noticed  him  in  a  dim  sort  of  way  during 
the  first  few  weeks  at  Brown  Brothers.  Jenkins  and  I 
even  talked  him  over  and  failed  to  come  to  any  definite 
conclusion,  save  that  he  was  a  good  man.  But  we  were 
appraising  all  the  force  then ;  this  was  prior  to  the  house 
cleaning.  After  the  eviction  of  the  leisure  class  he  came 
more  and  more  into  our  notice. 

Jenkins  always  claimed  that  he  discovered  Marks.  I 
dispute  that  claim;  I  think  that  Marks  discovered  him- 
self. But  he  would  have  come  to  light  sooner  or  later, 
even  if  I  had  not  gone  in  search  of  Jenkins  that  day  and 
found  him  deep  in  discussion  with  Marks.  They  were 
vastly  interested  in  some  sort  of  chart  on  Marks'  desk, 
so  interested  that  I  stood  behind  them  unobserved. 

"And  in  the  third  column "  said  Jenkins,  and 

scratched  his  head  in  an  effort  of  memory. 

"The  shipping  room  check?"  suggested  Marks. 

"So  it  is;  so  it  is.  That  gives  us  a  double  check,  you 
see.  No  chance  of  a  slip-up,  with  the  office  check  on  this 
other  sheet."  He  turned  and  saw  me.  "How's  this, 
Coffin?  You  remember  that  you  were  complaining  over 
tracing  orders?  I've  figured  out  something  here;  look 
it  over." 

We  had  had  a  vast  amount  of  trouble  in  keeping  track 
of  orders  in  their  progress  through  the  house;  previous 
to  the  house  cleaning  three  of  the  pensioners  had  made 
it  their  duty  to  trot  about  and  keep  things  moving,  cre- 
ating endless  confusion  and  deluding  no  one  save  them- 
selves by  their  show  of  industry.  The  system  which  had 
obtained  at  the  Boston  place  proved  of  no  use  under  these 
new  conditions.  After  two  or  three  abortive  attempts  at 
solving  the  problem  I  had  given  it  up. 

"This  here  is  a  perforation,"  explained  Jenkins.  "It's 
two  sheets,  really,  both  printed  the  same.  Check  off 
your  order  in  this  column  on  both  sheets ;  then  one  goes 


134  FLOOD  TIDE 

to  the  office  and  the  other  to  the  truckman.  Now  then — 
how  did  I  say  that  we  were  to  arrange  the  printed  list, 
Marks?" 

"After  the  stock  list." 

"That's  it.  Now "  and  he  went  on  to  explain  his 

improved  method  in  detail.  Marks  cut  in  now  and  then, 
to  remind  him  of  some  feature  which  he  had  slurred  over. 
As  the  explanation  proceeded  I  looked  at  Jenkins  with 
new  respect. 

"Well?"  he  said  triumphantly. 

"It's  good,"  I  said  emphatically. 

"Isn't  it?"  he  crowed  delightfully.  "Oh,  I  may  be  an 
old  duffer  and  all  that,  but  I  can  think  up  something  once 
in  a  while."  He  was  obviously  tickled  to  death  at  having 
beaten  me  in  my  own  province  of  improvement.  "Any 
suggestions?"  he  challenged. 

"Not  a  one,"  I  answered  truthfully. 

"I'm  a  son  of  a  gun  when  I  get  started,"  he  bragged. 
"We'll  get  some  system  into  this  old  ark  yet." 

He  danced  off,  to  have  the  sheets  typewritten  and  sent 
to  the  printer.  I  watched  him,  and  wondered  if  his  ob- 
jections to  new  methods  had  been  part  of  a  pose  after  all. 

As  I  turned,  Marks  winked  at  me,  slowly  and  deliber- 
ately. I  understood. 

"That  was  your  idea,  then." 

"Why — not  entirely,"  he  replied.  "Jenkins  suggested 
that  column  heading." 

"Which  is  the  one  objectionable  feature.  But — how 
in  the  deuce  did  you  get  him  to  adopt  it?  If  I  had  sug- 
gested it  we'd  have  fought  like  two  cats  in  a  bag." 

He  laughed,  and  ran  his  fingers  through  his  thick  mop 
of  pepper  and  salt  hair.  "The  harder  a  person  is  to 
drive,  the  easier  he  is  to  lead.  Now  you — you  go  at  him 
rather " 

"Bull  headed,"  I  supplied,   as  he  hesitated. 

"Exactly.  You  see  how  it  works?  If  I  had  called  you 
bull  headed  you  would  object — naturally.  That  was  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  135 

idea  I  had  in  mind,  but  I  let  you  suggest  it  yourself.  The 
same  with  Jenkins.  Lead  him  along  until  a  thing  is  under 

his  nose "  He  stopped,  smiled,  and  shrugged  his 

shoulders. 

"And  he  discovers  it  for  himself,"  I  completed.  "But 
you  don't  get  the  credit." 

"No?"  he  queried,  examining  a  pen  point  with  great 
interest.  "I'm  not  sure." 

He  turned  back  to  his  work  again  and  I  went  away 
wondering  whether  my  method  was  right  after  all.  Still 
wondering,  I  turned  into  the  inner  office,  and  found  Jen- 
kins pensively  contemplating  the  sheets  which  he  and 
Marks  had  worked  over.  He  made  one  or  two  changes, 
frowned  over  them,  and  then  erased  them. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said  slowly,  "we've  got  some  con- 
foundedly smart  men  about  this  place?  I'm  just  begin- 
ning to  find  it  out.  .  .  ." 

I  find  many  of  my  memories  of  this  time  obscured  by 
the  figure  of  Marks.  He  soon  became  a  figure  of  impor- 
tance about  the  office  and  warehouse.  The  fact  that  he 
was  a  Jew  was  against  him  at  first,  but  not  for  long.  We 
forgot  it.  Neither  physically  nor  mentally  was  there 
any  connection  between  Marks  and  the  rest  of  his  race; 
he  was  neither  self-assertive,  bustling,  nor  grasping. 
When  I  first  knew  him  he  must  have  been  about  thirty- 
five,  already  gray  about  the  temples — he  was  silver  haired 
at  forty — short,  lean,  and  discouraged.  His  only  physi- 
cal peculiarity  was  a  slight  waddle  in  his  walk,  a  barely 
perceptible  out  turning  of  the  foot  and  flexion  of  the 
knee. 

At  thirty-five  he  was  an  admitted  failure.  How  or 
why  he  came  to  Brown  Brothers'  moribund  establishment 
I  don't  know ;  I  do  know  that  before  he  came  there  he  had 
made  three  starts  in  the  grocery  business  and  failed  each 
time.  In  each  case  his  failure  had  come  from  no  fault 
of  his  own;  he  once  summed  it  up  as  a  succession  of 


136  FLOOD  TIDE 

"crooks,  fire,  and  competition" — the  battle,  murder  and 
sudden  death  of  the  business  Litany. 

He  became  indispensable.  Neither  Jenkins  nor  I  knew 
the  retail  end  of  the  business  as  Marks  did,  although  we 
were  both  far  ahead  of  him  in  knowledge  of  the  wholesale 
end.  We  came  to  rely  on  his  judgment  more  and  more; 
he  became  a  frequent  third  in  our  conferences. 

When  we  had  the  warehouse  and  office  running  more 
smoothly — or  rather  less  jerkily — we  turned  our  attention 
to  building  up  the  trade.  Here  Marks  was  invaluable.  I 
bullyragged  Hatherly  into  buying  an  automobile — one  of 
these  affairs  of  the  Dark  Ages,  with  a  toboggan  prow 
and  the  engine  under  the  seat.  She  steered  with  a  tiller 
and  always  made  heavy  weather  of  it.  In  this  panting 
and  erratic  go-cart  Marks  and  I  made  the  rounds  of  the 
town,  getting  into  personal  touch  with  our  customers, 
reviving  old  ones  and  looking  for  new  business.  It  was 
interesting  work,  skipping  from  one  little  store  to  an- 
other, meeting  men  of  all  sorts  and  conditions.  There 
was  a  larger  foreign  element  among  them  than  I  had 
found  in  my  collecting  trips  about  the  Boston  territory; 
Greeks,  Jews,  Germans,  one  Syrian  place,  and  a  sprinkling 
of  old  line  Yankees.  In  one  respect  they  were  all  alike ; 
each  had  his  special  form  of  complaint  and  each  had  his 
own  ideas  about  our  business.  They  all  took  a  great 
interest  in  the  rejuvenation  of  Brown  Brothers.  For  a 
while  I  tried  to  argue  with  these  people,  but  I  soon  gave 
that  over  and  accepted  each  suggestion  as  though  it  was 
entirely  new — following  Marks'  method. 

"You're  right,  Mr.  Pinsky ;  we  do  need  another  truck," 
I  would  say,  as  Pinsky,  up  in  the  Bronx,  followed  us 
out  to  the  sidewalk  to  press  home  his  suggestions  about 
quicker  delivery.  "But  you  know  how  we're  fixed.  And 
we'll  have  gasoline  trucks  in  a  couple  of  years,  you  know." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Pinsky  doubtfully,  "I'm  scared  of  them 
myself.  You  gotta  consider  that  us  people  ain't  got  room 
for  a  big  stock,  and  when  we  want  a  thing,  we  want  it." 


FLOOD  TIDE  137 

"I'll  put  it  up  to  Mr.  Hatherly,"  I  answered,  crank- 
ing the  car — she  cranked  from  the  side,  like  a  hurdy- 
gurdy — "and  I'll  tell  him  that  it's  your  suggestion.  He 
says  himself  that  a  satisfied  customer  is  the  best  adver- 
tisement." 

"That's  right,"  said  Pinsky,  reaching  up  and  patting 
my  arm.  "You  tell  him  what  I  said  and  he'll  shove  it 
through  right  quick." 

And  we  would  chug  away,  leaving  Pinsky  beaming  and 
dry-washing  his  hands  on  the  curb.  There  is  always  more 
than  one  way  of  satisfying  a  customer. 

Back  again  at  the  office  we  would  analyze  these  people, 
or,  rather,  I  asked  questions  and  Marks  analyzed.  In 
time  we  evolved  a  form  blank  for  keeping  track  of  our 
trade. 

"Pinsky  has  a  good  place,"  I  would  suggest. 

"Too  crowded,"  Marks  would  answer,  or  perhaps  he 
was  overstocked  or  in  a  poorly  chosen  locality.  Marks 
always  found  some  trouble — and  his  points  were  always 
well  taken. 

Marks  and  I  got  a  good  deal  of  amusement  out  of  these 
suggestions.  I  don't  know  how  they  impressed  him;  I 
know  that  I  formed  the  habit  of  putting  them  down  at 
night,  together  with  Marks'  criticisms,  considering  and 
testing  and  gradually  weaving  them  into  the  old  note  book. 
My  notes  gradually  crystallized  and  cohered  into  a  defi- 
nite plan,  slowly  at  first,  and  then  taking  on  structure  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  One  thing  troubled  me  immensely;  I 
realized  that  without  Marks  this  plan  was  useless.  But 
how  to  get 


m 

Clearer  than  any  other  event  of  this  time  I  recall  the 
day  when  Marks  took  up  his  part  in  this  conception  of 
mine.  There  was  a  "glory  story"  written  about  us  once, 
a  rather  absurd  and  over-colored  narrative,  in  which  the 


138  FLOOD  TIDE 

entire  plan  of  The  Stores  sprang  up  over  night,  like  the 
palace  which  the  Slave  of  the  Lamp  built  for  Aladdin. 
We  laid  out  the  main  features  of  the  structure  that  night, 
but  it  was  far  from  being  a  complete  fabric  when  dawn 
surprised  us  at  our  work.  Only  the  main  outlines  were 
there,  a  rough  and  incompleted  vision  of  the  whole. 

Gottlieb,  a  little  German  whose  pet  idea  had  been  that 
we  move  uptown,  really  started  it.  With  some  four  or 
five  others  of  our  customers  he  had  started  a  cooperation 
scheme,  buying  directly  from  the  markets  and  manufac- 
turers instead  of  purchasing  through  us.  Marks  and  I 
had  followed  this  attempt  with  a  great  deal  of  interest. 
At  first  we  tried  to  dissuade  them,  for  it  meant  a  loss  of 
trade  for  us.  This  failing,  we  had  given  them  advice  and 
suggestions.  While  it  lasted  their  project  promised  great 
things,  but  it  came  to  an  end  in  a  row  which  called  out 
the  reserves  from  one  of  the  uptown  stations. 

"They  all  end  that  way,"  said  Marks  soberly,  handing 
me  the  newspaper  with  a  half  column  account  of  the  af- 
fair— it  was  treated  in  a  semi-humorous  manner,  I  re- 
member. "One  member  is  always  a  little  stronger  than 
the  others;  then  comes  jealousy,  mismanagement  and  dis- 
solution. We'll  have  them  all  in  here  in  a  few  days,  look- 
ing for  a  new  line  of  credit." 

Two  of  the  members  of  this  alliance  went  out  of  busi- 
ness, but  the  others  came  back  as  Marks  had  prophesied, 
with  vague  but  voluble  explanations  of  their  failure.  They 
each  blamed  the  others  for  stupidity  and  greediness;  if 
their  advice  had  been  taken  there  would  have  been  no 
trouble.  Last  of  all  came  Gottlieb,  almost  heart  broken 
at  his  failure.  From  him  we  got  a  clear  account  of  what 
had  happened;  sure  enough,  he  had  tried  to  dominate  the 
others  and  in  the  resulting  squabble  had  come  disaster. 
But  Gottlieb  couldn't  see  why  they  had  failed.  He  shook 
his  head  mournfully,  a  squat  little  figure  of  woe  gazing 
dejectedly  into  the  crown  of  his  hat. 

"Well,  that's  all,"  he  said  heavily.     "If  these  others 


FLOOD  TIDE  139 

would  have  listened  to  me  we'd  have  made  a  go  of  it.  ... 
After  this,  Gottlieb  sticks  by  his  own  place." 

"I  should  advise  that,"  commented  Jenkins  dryly.  "As 
for  your  credit — let's  see  what  the  books  say.  I  think  we 
can  manage  it." 

They  went  out  together,  tall,  ascetic  Jenkins  and  fat 
little  Gottlieb  with  the  bristly  roll  of  flesh  over  his  collar, 
Jenkins  bending  courteously  to  listen  to  Gottlieb's 
rumbled  explanations. 

Marks  followed  them  with  his  eyes,  "Just  as  I  said," 
he  commented.  "He  tried  to  boss  the  others,  they  wouldn't 
stand  for  it,  and  the  result  was  a  grand  free-for-all." 

"You  were  right,"  I  agreed  thoughtfully.  "These  round 
robin  ways  of  doing  business  never  seem  to  get  anywhere." 

"Everything  has  a  head,"  he  said  absently.  "They 
tried  to  buck  a  natural  law,  that's  all.  .  .  .  Their  idea 
was  good.  Cooperation  is  always  good." 

I  had  my  own  ideas  about  that.  "Cooperation  is  not 
goods,  Marks.  The  good  feature  about  cooperative  stores 
is  the  part  which  isn't  concerned  with  collective  action — 
the  buying  and  the  advantages  of  central  management 
of  units.  It's " 

"The  Rochdale  stores — England,"  he  reminded  me. 

"That's  profit  sharing — a  distinct  thing.  That  in- 
volves the  customer.  You  can't  consider  that  over  here; 
we're  not  built  that  way.  .  .  .  Marks,  I  believe  that  what 
money  there  is  in  this  business  is  in  the  retail  end.  Or — " 
I  watched  the  effect  of  this — "in  a  combination  of  the 
wholesale  and  retail." 

But  he  proved  disappointingly  dull. 

"A  retail  grocery  is  the  poorest  business  risk  in  the 
world,"  he  said  dismally.  "I  ought  to  know." 

"How  about  two  stores?" 

"Double  the  risk.     Two  bad  eggs  are  worse  than  one." 

"But  if  the  first  store  was  good — and  the  second  was 
like  it " 

"No  two  stores  are  alike," 


140  FLOOD  TIDE 

"There's  no  reason  why  they  shouldn't  be,"  I  objected. 

"No  reason  at  all,  except  that  no  two  men  think  alike." 

"But  if  one  man  thought  alike — I  mean  if  one  man : 

"Owned  both  stores?"  Marks  was  the  unconscious  vic- 
tim of  his  own  method  of  suggestion.  "He'd  double  his 
chances  of  either  winning  or  losing." 

"There's  no  such  thing  as  a  perfect  store,  of  course," 
I  considered.  "You  and  I  know  that.  Some  have  one 
good  feature,  some  another.  Suppose  you  combined  these 
good  features  all  in  one  place;  is  there  any  reason  why 
you  shouldn't  multiply  that  place  indefinitely?" 

"Many  reasons — limitations  of  territory,  the  necessities 
of  management,  the  lack  of  capital.  Put  that  first.  You 
can't  start  a  store  on  nothing.  And  after  you  start  it, 
you  can't  go  away  and  let  it  run  itself.  You've  got  to  be 
on  the  job  twenty-three  hours  a  day,  and  even  then  you're 
not  safe." 

"Why  twenty-three  hours  a  day?" 

"Something  always  goes  wrong." 

I  spoke  out  of  the  vast  depths  of  my  experience.  "No 
need  of  it.  If  you  had  a  free  hand  here  couldn't  you 
systematize  this  place  so  it  would  almost  run  itself?" 

"I  think  I  could — so  could  you." 

"Then  why  not  the  same  in  a  retail  place?" 

"I'd  like  to  try  it,"  he  said  wistfully.  "But  it's  a  mat- 
ter of  temporizing — of  putting  up  with  what  you  have. 
Why,  in  my  last  store — 

"I  know.  But  suppose  you  started  clean  and  new,  with 
two  or  three  places  in  good  locations.  Spend  two  or  three 
years  trying  ideas,  whittling  down,  finding  the  best  ways 
of  doing  things.  Get  everything  running  on  ball  bearings. 
Then  start  to  add.  Is  there  any  reason  why  you  couldn't 
add  indefinitely,  beyond  the  fact  that  the  business  of 
management  would  be  a  limitation?  And  that's  a  bridge 
you  could  cross  when  you  came  to  it." 

He  was  interested  and  yet  doubtful. 

"Think  what  you've  save  on  the  buying  end  alone,"  I 


FLOOD  TIDE 

went  on.     "In  time  it  would  mean  the  elimination  of  the 
profit  of  places  like  this." 

"You've  got  to  show  me." 

"I  intend  to.  I  may  be  bragging,  but  I  think  that  I 
know  this  wholesale  business  as  well  as  the  next  man. 
And  I'm  not  getting  anywhere.  You  know  the  retail 
end — I  know,  you've  had  three  failures,  but  if  you  don't 
know  more  about  it  than  nine-tenths  of  our  customers 
I'm  one  Chinaman  and  you're  another.  Do  you  see  any 
prospects  here?  Or  in  the  retail  business — provided  you 
make  another  start?" 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  do,"  he  answered  morosely.  "I've 
been  trying  to  get  up  courage  for  another  start  and  I 
can't  do  it." 

"Two  heads  are  better  than  one.  Perhaps  this  will 
help  you  get  back  your  nerve." 

I  reached  down  into  the  desk  and  gave  him  the  book 
over  which  I  had  worked  so  long.  He  turned  it  over  cu- 
riously, glanced  at  me,  then  spread  it  out  on  the  desk 
and  opened  it. 

He  skimmed  over  the  whole,  dipping  into  it  here  and 
there,  pausing  to  read  a  snatch  here  and  there — I  im- 
agine that  he  came  across  his  own  name  more  than  once 
in  this  rapid  survey.  Then  he  turned  to  the  beginning 
again.  Opposite  the  first  page  was  a  chart  of  the  whole 
idea,  a  fan-shaped  construction  with  connecting  lines 
leading  from  larger  to  smaller  circles.  He  puzzled  over 
this  for  a  time,  got  a  vague  grasp  of  its  essentials,  and 
then  detached  it  from  the  rest,  referring  to  it  as  he  read 
on.  He  nodded  to  himself  as  the  plan  grew  upon  him; 
slowly  and  doubtfully  at  first,  but  as  he  saw  the  main  fea- 
tures he  began  to  wag  his  head  in  approval.  It  was  in- 
complete, merely  a  fragment,  even  in  the  chart  there  were 
sections  marked  with  interrogation  points,  but  it  was  as 
complete  as  a  mere  mental  construction  could  be.  He 
went  through  it  three  times,  each  time  more  rapidly,  get- 
ting the  main  points  firmly  fixed  in  his  mind. 


142  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Well?"  I  said  finally,  as  he  closed  the  book. 

He  hesitated.  "My  name  occurs  quite  frequently  here. 
You  mean " 

He  waited,  and  I  smiled  at  his  obvious  stratagem.  "I 
mean  that  you  and  I  share  equally,"  I  answered.  "Un- 
less, of  course,  you're  satisfied  to  stay  here." 

"I'm  not."' 

"Then  shall  we  try  it?" 

"I'm  with  you,"  he  said  briefly,  and  we  shook  hands 
on  it. 

"Now  show  me  my  mistakes.    I've  made  them,  I  know." 

We  went  through  the  entire  book  again,  drifting  off 
into  far  reaching  discussions  as  we  went  along,  tracing 
minor  matters  as  far  as  possible  into  the  future  and  then 
coming  back  to  take  up  some  other  aspect  of  the  plan. 
Evening  came  on,  the  clatter  and  rumble  in  the  street 
dwindled  away  to  silence  and  still  the  discussion  held  us. 
Toward  midnight  we  sent  the  night  watchman  out  to  Was- 
serbauer's  for  coffee  and  sandwiches  and  ate  as  we  talked. 
We  combined  in  attacking  my  plan  from  every  conceivable 
angle,  questioning,  objecting,  seeking  alternatives;  some 
parts  of  it  withstood  our  questionings  and  others  we  re- 
made in  part  or  in  whole.  But  the  main  idea,  the  skele- 
ton of  it  all,  stood  intact.  It  was  morning  when  we  finally 
worked  through  to  the  last  page  of  the  outline. 

Marks  struggled  with  a  yawn  and  came  off  vanquished. 
"Let's  call  it  a  day,"  he  suggested  sleepily. 

I  gathered  up  the  scattered  sheets  of  notes  and  patted 
them  together.  "You've  raised  the  very  devil  with  my 
plans,"  I  said  almost  regretfully.  "They're  not  mine  any 
longer,  but  ours." 

We  went  out  together  into  the  clean  morning  sunlight. 


IV 

Well,  that  was  how  it  started,  during  the  long  Novem- 
ber night  when  Marks  and  I  welded  together  the  structure 


FLOOD  TIDE  143 

of  The  Stores  over  our  sandwiches  and  lukewarm  coffee. 
The  result  was  only  a  rough  working  plan  of  the  frame- 
work ;  during  the  winter  we  added  to  it  gradually,  a  pinch 
here  and  a  pinch  there,  gradually  smoothing  and  fashion- 
ing our  material. 

"There's  nothing  original  about  the  whole  affair," 
Marks  declared.  "It  just  consists  in  doing  things  better. 
While  we're  here,  we've  got  the  chance  of  finding  out  how 
others  do  business  and  what  mistakes  they  make.  After 
we  start  we'll  have  to  learn  from  our  own  mistakes.  It's 
up  to  us  to  learn  all  we  can  while  we  can.  ...  I  never 
realized  before  how  little  I  actually  know." 

Neither  did  I.  I  was  impatient  at  first,  but  as  time 
went  on  and  I  came  to  appreciate  the  myriad  details  which 
we  had  to  provide  for  I  lost  some  measure  of  this  impa- 
tience and  settled  down  to  work  and  wait. 

We  stayed  on  at  Hatherly's,  doing  our  usual  work 
during  the  day  and  our  planning  after  hours  and  at  odd 
moments  during  the  day.  We  questioned,  explored,  in- 
vestigated. We  went  as  far  as  we  dared  into  the  affairs 
of  our  customers. 

"You  take  a  sudden  interest  in  my  business,"  said 
Pinsky,  mystified. 

"The  more  goods  you  sell  the  better  for  us,"  evaded 
Marks.  "Why  don't  you  move  your  butter  chest  from 
behind  the  counter,  where  you  can  get  at  it?" 

"But— it's  always  been  there,"  countered  Pinsky.  "Arid 
suppose  I  moved  her  out  on  the  front,  would  I  sell  any 
more  butter?" 

He  shook  his  head  in  triumph,  and  Marks  gave  up  his 
attempt  at  reconstruction.  I  scarcely  blamed  Pinsky; 
to  move  the  butter  chest  would  have  started  an  endless 
train  of  changes.  That  was  one  thing  which  we  intended 
to  avoid  through  this  preliminary  planning.  As  far  as 
possible  we  intended  to  find  the  best  possible  arrange- 
ment and  then  try  it  out  in  actual  practice. 

Every  day  we  added  something  to  our  structure,  this 


144  FLOOD  TIDE 

or  that  problem  was  solved,  suggestions  disposed  of,  some 
finally  and  others  with  a  choice  of  alternatives  to  be 
worked  out  later.  Sometimes  I  felt  a  sneaking  sense  of 
disloyalty  to  Hatherly,  but  with  the  end  of  the  recon- 
struction period  my  work  had  become  a  matter  of  routine 
and  in  reality  Hatherly  lost  nothing.  He  was  satisfied, 
and  said  so  on  one  of  his  frequent  visits.  Jenkins  was 
pleased  also. 

"Staying  again,  eh?"  he  would  inquire.  "That's  the 
stuff — keep  you  out  of  cheap  bar  rooms.  Did  it  myself 
when  I  was  your  age." 

"What,  the  bar  rooms?"  queried  Marks  innocently. 

Jenkins  paused  in  tucking  in  the  ends  of  his  long  muf- 
fler. "No,  dammit,  the  work — worked  all  hours,"  he  ex- 
ploded. Then  he  chuckled.  "Yes,  the  bar  rooms  once 
in  a  while.  Don't  over  work." 

Marks  grinned  at  me  as  Jenkins  struggled  into  his 
overcoat  and  went  out  stepping  high.  "Human  old  cuss, 
after  all.  Now  about  this — 

And  we  would  fall  to  with  renewed  vigor. 

But  in  all  our  planning  there  was  something  lacking, 
an  absence  of  some  necessary  element.  We  felt  it  vaguely ; 
Marks  almost  touched  it  when  he  said  that  there  was 
nothing  original  about  our  plans.  Something  was  needed 
beside  a  central  idea  dressed  in  borrowed  raiment. 


At  this  time  there  were  three  of  us  rooming  on  the 
top  floor  of  the  old  house  not  far  from  Brown  Brothers, 
McCollom,  Jack  Worthington  and  myself.  McCollom, 
that  wild  Scotchman,  was  there  when  I  came.  He  was 
doing  police  courts  for  the  City  News  Bureau  at  that 
time  and  was  remarkable  for  his  magnificent  contempt  of 
all  official  wisdom.  More  faintly  I  remember  Worthing- 
ton as  he  was  then ;  he  arrived  a  few  weeks  after  I  came, 
displacing  a  middle  aged  man  with  lank  and  discouraged 


FLOOD  TIDE  145 

hair.  Worthington  had  two  failings ;  he  wrote  verses  and 
read  Swinburne  aloud  in  the  evening  and  sold  insurance 
for  a  living.  Beside  these  two  there  was  a  Russian  anar- 
chist, in  one  of  the  back  rooms,  who  conducted  fierce  one 
sided  arguments  with  Worthington  as  he  shaved  in  the 
morning,  waving  his  razor  about  and  bouncing  fragments 
of  abused  English  from  Jack's  head.  He  left,  in  the 
course  of  time,  without  gratifying  McCollom's  earnest 
wish  that  he'd  cut  his  throat. 

We  were  all  about  the  same  age,  and  a  common  isola- 
tion drew  us  together;  we  borrowed  tobacco  and  finally 
became  well  enough  acquainted  to  call  each  other  fighting 
names. 

During  the  winter  a  fourth  man  joined  us. 

I  came  home  from  a  late  session  with  Marks,  yawning 
and  stumbling  over  curbstones  in  a  drizzling  wet  snow. 
By  all  right  Scipio — surnamed  Africanus  by  Worthing- 
ton— should  have  been  abed  long  before,  but  as  I  went 
upstairs  he  dodged  out  from  his  mysterious  den  in  the 
back  regions  of  the  house. 

"Thar's  a  stranger  in  your  room,  Mis'r  Coffin,"  he 
whispered  over  the  banister.  "Been  thar  all  evenin'.  I 
ast  him  to  wait  here  in  the  hall — but  no,  he  insist  that  he 
knows  you  and  swears  at  me  scandalous.  So  I  let  him 
in." 

"What's  his  name?"  I  asked. 

"I  forget,"  admitted  Skip.  "But  he's  got  on  a  straw 
hat — and  weather  like  this,  too!  Mostly  them  people 
calls  'emselves  Napoleon." 

I  climbed,  Skip  bringing  up  a  safe  and  conservative 
rear. 

"See  him?"  he  whispered,  pointing  through  my  open 
door. 

I  saw.  The  stranger  sat  under  the  green  shaded  light ; 
in  addition  to  the  straw  hat  he  had  donned  my  red  bath- 
robe. His  face  was  thin  and  yellow.  And,  as  a  final 
touch,  he  had  taken  from  the  walls  all  my  Whitehaven 


146  FLOOD  TIDE 

paintings,  propped  them  on  chairs  and  table,  and  sat  sur- 
veying them  critically. 

"Say,"  queried  the  apparition,  "how  long  since  they've 
built  over  the  Point?  And  what's  become  of  Littlefield's 
fish  house?  Who  painted  these  things,  anyway?" 

I  admitted  my  guilt. 

"No!"  he  croaked.  "So  that's  what  you're  doing.  I 
always  knew  you'd  come  to  a  bad  end.  You  don't  remem- 
ber me,  do  you?  Buck's  Island — the  Shadow " 

He  removed  his  tattered  panama  and  grinned  up  at 
me. 

"Stowell!  You  confounded  old  ghost!  What  have  you 
been  doing  with  yourself?  Where's  your  hair?" 

"In  Venezuela.     Fever,  you  know.     I've 

He  broke  off  and  stared  over  my  shoulder  at  Skip. 
That  worthy,  at  sight  of  Dick's  uncovered  head,  had  gone 
off  in  an  explosion  of  Senegambian  laughter.  I  led  him 
gently  outside. 

"So  you're  an  artist  chap,"  resumed  Stowell  question- 
ingly. 

"No.  I'm  a  clerk  in  a  wholesale  grocery  house,"  I  cor- 
rected. That  mistake  out  of  the  way,  we  settled  down  to 
catch  up  the  threads  of  the  past.  He  had  just  landed 
that  morning  from  a  New  Orleans  boat — hence  the  straw 
hat — and  we  had  the  events  of  five  years  and  more  to  go 
over.  My  part  was  soon  told,  the  final  two  years  at  col- 
lege, then  Hatherly's  and  finally  our  New  York  place, 
but  beside  Dick's  narrative  it  seemed  most  commonplace 
and  gray. 

He  gave  me  just  the  bare  outline  of  it  that  night,  a 
brief,  laconic  Odyssey  of  five  years  spent  in  wandering 
about  South  and  Central  America,  building  railroads  in 
the  upland  coffee  country  of  Brazil,  working  on  railroads 
and  breakwaters  on  the  western  coast  and  once  serving  as 
second  engineer  on  a  side  wheel  tub  which  wallowed  from 
port  to  port  on  the  Caribbean. 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  fishing  into  his  pocket  and  tossing 


FLOOD  TIDE  147 

me  a  great  emblazoned  decoration.  "I'm  a  chevalier 
now — don't  laugh — Don  Ricardo  Stowell  de  San  Luis 
and  the  rest  of  it.  That  piece  of  hardware  and  a  yard 
of  ribbon  stand  for  six  months'  work,  fighting  land  crabs 
and  helping  rebuild  an  old  fort  on  the  sand  pit  off  Ando- 
tinna." 

I  swung  the  enameled  star  to  and  fro  by  its  gaudy  and 
frayed  ribbon  as  he  went  on.  It  was  a  queer  panorama 
which  he  unrolled  as  the  snow  flakes  hissed  and  whirled 
outside  the  windows.  He  unrolled  it  slowly  and  jerkily, 
now  from  one  end  and  now  from  the  other,  hurrying  on 
when  I  wished  him  to  go  into  detail  and  pausing  over 
inconsequential  and  unrelated  memories  as  they  crowded 
into  his  mind.  I  retain  a  strange  medley  of  impressions 
of  his  story;  it  brought  back  the  times  when  we  had 
sprawled  on  the  cliffs  of  the  Island  and  imagined  such 
things.  That  is,  I  had  imagined  them;  now  Stowell  had 
lived  them  and  come  back  to  tell  about  it.  Panama; 
something  big  was  going  to  break  there  soon;  Bolivia — 
"The  most  wonderful  cattle  country  in  the  world,  back 
from  the  coast" — ;  Argentina .  That  brought  White- 
haven  and  Bess  to  mind  and  we  wandered  off  into  home 
talk.  As  well  as  I  could  I  satisfied  his  eagerness  to  hear 
from  home,  raking  my  memory  for  news  of  figures  long 
lost  to  sight. 

It  was  very  late  when  we  turned  in,  and  I  was  hard  put 
to  find  coverings  enough  to  satisfy  Dick. 

"Cold,"  he  mumbled,  as  he  dropped  off  to  sleep,  "First 
snow  I've  seen  for  years.  Remember  the  time  we  buried 
Jimmy  Blackburn  in  the  drift  and  had  to  get  shovels  to 
dig  him  out?" 

There  was  no  work  for  me  the  next  day.  Dick  insisted 
on  a  holiday.  We  bought  a  decent  hat  to  replace  the 
straw  atrocity  and  got  the  biggest  fur  coat  we  could 
find  in  town.  He  stared  at  the  motors  and  boasted  of 
having  seen  one  two  years  before  in  Rio. 

He  broke  into  my  work  a  great  deal  during  the  weeks 


148  FLOOD  TIDE      , 

that  followed,  not  an  intentional  interruption,  but  his 
presence  made  a  break  in  the  steady  current  of  my  work. 
He  settled  down  in  the  anarchist's  room  opposite  mine, 
stocked  it  with  furniture  and  what  few  possessions  he 
had  brought  back  from  the  south,  and  started  to  grow  a 
new  crop  of  hair.  He  fell  in  easily  with  McCollom  and 
Worthington;  Mac  got  material  for  several  Sunday  sup- 
plement articles  out  of  him  and  Worthington  was  inspired 
to  start  a  new  series  of  lyrics — "Songs  of  the  Southern 
Cross,"  he  called  them.  And,  a  wonderful  thing,  he  sold 
them,  and  the  three  went  on  a  celebration  and  came  home 
to  rout  me  from  my  figuring,  Worthington  insisting  on 
reciting  the  whole  series  from  end  to  end,  Dick  strum- 
ming an  accompaniment  on  a  battered  old  mandolin  and 
Mac  doing  the  pantomime. 

After  the  novelty  of  getting  back  wore  off,  Stowell 
found  time  hanging  heavy  on  his  hands.  He  formed  the 
habit  of  dropping  in  on  us  at  Hatherly's  in  the  afternoon, 
wandering  about  the  warehouse,  and,  when  tired  of  that, 
sitting  in  the  office  and  yawning  over  our  small  stock  of 
trade  literature.  Once,  as  Marks  and  I  were  threading 
our  way  down  town  in  the  car,  we  passed  Dick,  fur  coat 
and  all,  perched  high  on  the  seat  of  one  of  our  trucks, 
he  and  the  driver  smoking  long  cigars  and  enjoying  them- 
selves hugely. 

He  took  a  great  interest  in  our  plans,  asking  questions 
without  end.  After  he  thoroughly  understood  what  we 
were  aiming  at  he  began  to  dip  his  finger  into  our  pie, 
always  apologizing  for  his  intrusion  but  sometimes  sur- 
prising us  by  his  keen  analysis  of  our  difficulties.  Once 
or  twice  we  asked  his  opinion  of  minor  matters  over  which 
we  differed,  and  considering  his  slight  knowledge  of  the 
problems  the  solutions  were  surprisingly  good,  backed  by 
clear  common  sense. 

"Would  we  ever  have  thought  of  that?"  Marks  asked 
me  one  day,  after  Stowell  had  overturned  one  of  our  minor 
pinnacles  with  a  single  thrust  and  then  gone  out  to  chat 


FLOOD  TIDE  149 

with  the  head  shipping  clerk.  "I  don't  think  so.  ... 
What  is  he  planning  to  do  when  he  gets  on  his  feet  again  ?" 

I  told  him  the  various  things  which  Dick  had  in  mind. 

"We're  going  to  need  a  man  like  him  some  day,"  he  con- 
sidered, digging  away  at  his  blotter  with  a  pen.  "We 
need  him  now,  for  that  matter.  Common  sense  is  a  rare 
commodity.  He  sees  things  from  the  outside — something 
you  and  I  can  never  do.  I  wonder ' 

He  drummed  on  his  desk  and  trailed  off  into  silence. 

"If  we  could  use  him?"  I  completed. 

"No;  not  that,"  said  Marks.  "I  wonder  if  we  can 
get  along  without  him." 

VI 

Stowell  and  I  resolved  to  go  home  together  for  Christ- 
mas. 

"You  can  stay  here  if  you  want,"  he  threatened,  "but 
I'm  going  home  and  see  a  regular  Christmas  tree  and  plug 
snow  balls  at  the  Orthodox  choir  when  they  come  around 
singing  carols.  And  I'm  going  skating,  too;  wonder  if 
the  marsh  is  frozen  over  this  year?" 

He  went  to  the  mirror  and  grinned  at  himself. 

"Do  you  suppose  they'll  know  me?"  He  had  gained  a 
good  deal  of  weight  since  coming  back,  and  had  lost  some- 
thing of  that  unearthly  sallowness  which  had  startled  me 
at  first,  but  he  was  still  far  from  being  himself.  He  gazed 
anxiously  at  the  havoc  which  the  fever  had  wrought  on 
his  hair.  "Do  you  know,"  he  said  gravely,"  I  think  these 
two  patches  here  are  growing  together."  He  combed  his 
scanty  locks  across  the  bare  patches  and  stood  back  to 
survey  the  result.  "How's  that?" 

"Fine,"  I  answered.  "Just  like  the  map  of  South 
America;  you  can  stick  pins  in  it  and  map  out  your 
travels.  Take  that  long  hair  to  represent  the  Ama- 
zon  " 

The  hairbrush  barely  missed  me. 


150  FLOOD  TIDE 

I  am  sorry  now  that  these  trips  home  were  not  more 
frequent.  Bess  and  I  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  dif- 
ferences which  we  had  fought  over  while  I  was  in  Boston. 
In  reality  they  were  not  forgotten ;  I  came  home  at  longer 
intervals  now  and  when  I  came  there  was  so  much  to  talk 
about  that  we  had  no  chance  to  quarrel.  This  Christmas 
visit  stands  ou£  as  an  especially  happy  period.  Bess  was 
still  as  discontented  as  ever,  but  the  discontent  was  not 
so  apparent. 

We  went  skating  and  sleigh  riding,  routed  out  some  of 
our  old  friends  and  got  up  a  straw  ride  to  a  road  house 
out  in  the  country  and  in  general  enjoyed  ourselves  im- 
mensely. Dick  entertained  the  circle  of  Fire  Worshipers 
with  his  recitals  of  adventure — a  changed  circle  now,  for 
Jim  Knowles  had  gone  where  houses  cease  to  worry  and 
only  Captain  Waldron,  a  shade  more  wrinkled  and  a  deal 
more  dogmatic,  was  left  to  carry  on  the  work  of  enlight- 
enment. Once,  as  I  went  along  Front  Street,  Dick  and 
a  guerilla  band  of  his  young  nephews  assaulted  me  with 
a  sudden  bombardment  of  snowballs ;  they  were  a  band 
of  intrepid  patriots,  led  by  their  fearless  chieftain  against 
the  proud  and  haughty  Spaniard.  They  fought  with 
great  skill  and  valor  and  the  Spaniard  fled  in  great  dis- 
order. 

I  told  my  father  nothing  of  our  plans;  he  had  upset 
one  of  my  great  schemes  and  I  was  not  disposed  to  give 
him  the  chance  of  casting  cold  water  on  this  one.  I  knew 
that  this  was  no  boyish,  will  o'  the  wisp  scheme,  I  knew 
that  it  was  founded  on  hard  cold  fact,  but  until  I  knew 
these  facts  from  all  angles  and  had  the  figures  to  prove 
them  I  was  content  to  wait.  Bess  had  known  about  our 
plans  from  the  first. 

I  don't  know  what  she  really  thought  of  our  project; 
I  thought  that  I  knew  but  in  the  light  of  later  events  I 
question  that  knowledge.  She  took  a  keen  interest  in  all 
our  planning,  demanded  explanations  of  points  which  were 
not  quite  clear  and  even  argued  with  me  about  minor  mat- 


FLOOD  TIDE  151 

ters.  Undoubtedly  she  was  interested;  perhaps  it  was 
not  what  she  thought  of  it  as  why  she  thought  as  she  did 
that  puzzled  me. 

I  think  that  Bess  was  interested  because  it  was  "big 
business,"  or  at  least  big  business  in  the  making.  Per- 
haps this  was  due  to  my  earlier  letters  on  the  subject;  at 
first,  I  know,  I  was  interested  mainly  in  the  completed 
structure,  the  network  which  we  had  as  an  ultimate  end. 
I  overemphasized  this  element  of  our  plans.  Later,  as 
Marks  and  I  worked  over  the  matter,  I  came  to  appreciate 
that  this  end  was  still  far  in  the  future,  that  between  the 
present  and  the  finished  structure  there  was  a  stretch  of 
years,  years  filled  with  hard,  slow  work.  To  a  certain 
extent  I  put  away  the  future  and  worked  for  the  present. 
Bess  never  made  this  distinction.  Through  my  faulty 
perspective  she  confused  the  near  and  distant  future.  To 
this  day  I  believe  that  she  expected  the  entire  plan,  with 
all  its  ramifications  and  details,  to  spring  into  being  at 
once.  It  was  hard  to  disillusion  her.  These  small  matters 
over  which  we  expended  so  much  thought  and  labor  were 
poor  subjects  for  conversation;  it  was  impossible  to  be- 
come enthusiastic  and  interesting  over  the  merits  and 
selling  powers  of  various  brands  of  canned  salmon. 

I  say  that  Elizabeth  expected  the  entire  structure  to 
spring  up  immediately.  She  did  at  first,  but  as  the  months 
passed  and  we  still  marked  time  and  planned  she  realized, 
as  I  had,  that  as  a  whole  the  creation  was  still  a  thing  of 
the  future.  But  she  knew  nothing  of  the  difficulties  which 
we  had  to  overcome  and  the  slowness  of  finding  the  best 
possible  methods  of  doing  things.  I  tried  to  point  out 
that  we  had  only  a  few  hours  a  day  in  which  to  plan,  that 
we  were  saving  money  and  time  by  learning  through  the 
mistakes  of  others  rather  than  by  experience,  but  she 
failed  to  see  it. 

"Any  one  can  start  a  grocery  store,"  she  declared. 
"You  know  what  people  eat,  don't  you?  And  all  you  have 


152  FLOOD  TIDE 

to  do  is  get  those  things  and  sell  them.  I  don't  see  where 
the  difficulties  come  in." 

I  tried  to  show  her.  I  remember  that  I  was  vastly 
pleased  with  my  command  of  trade  jargon;  looking  back 
I  see  that  my  explanations  must  have  been  as  incompre- 
hensible as  an  exposition  of  the  fifth  dimension.  She 
couldn't  see  why  it  should  take  so  long  just  to  plan  mat- 
ters. 

"Oh,  hang  business !"  I  exclaimed  at  last.  "That's  all 
I've  heard  for  the  last  three  months — shall  we  do  this? 
shall  we  do  that?— and  I'm  tired  of  it.  Let's  talk  of 
something  worth  while — Dick,  for  instance.  I  wonder  if 
he's  thawed  out  yet?" 

This  was  the  night  after  the  straw  ride  to  the  Blue 
Anchor  Inn.  Dick  had  insisted  on  driving  the  barge  home, 
with  the  result  that  he  had  been  nearly  frozen  when  we 
drove  into  Whitehaven  after  midnight.  Bess  and  I  had 
kept  warm  after  the  approved  straw  ride  fashion.  She 
laughed  now  as  she  recalled  how  Dick  had  slowly  and 
creakingly  descended  from  his  perch  and  shivered  rem- 
iniscently  as  she  stretched  forth  her  hands  toward  the 
grateful  warmth  of  the  fireplace. 

"Poor  old  Dick!"  she  said  softly.  "He  looks  terribly 
old." 

And  "poor  old  Dick,"  I  echoed  mentally,  not  because 
he  looked  old  and  yellow,  but  because  he  was  missing  so 
much.  I  looked  at  Bess  as  she  leaned  forward,  her  clear 
profile  illuminated  by  the  firelight  and  standing  forth 
against  the  darkness  of  the  room,  and  I  pitied  Dick  from 
the  very  bottom  of  my  heart.  Bess  was  all  in  brown  that 
night,  a  brown  with  rich  golden  high  lights  and  deep  umber 
shadows;  I  remember  the  glint  of  the  firelight  on  the 
smooth  swell  of  her  hair — knotted  low  at  the  back  of  her 
head,  as  was  the  fashion  then — and  the  dull  glitter  of  the 
chain  about  her  neck  as  it  rose  and  fell,  a  glitter  that  ran 
to  and  fro  along  the  links  in  a  slow  rhythm.  Yes,  it  was 
too  bad  about  Dick. 


FLOOD  TIDE  153 

"You  should  have  seen  him  when  he  landed,"  I  returned. 
"He  has  picked  up  wonderfully  since  then." 

"Perhaps ;  but  he's  changed  immensely,"  she  said  ab- 
sently. "We've  all  three  of  us  changed  a  good  deal." 

I  made  some  remark  to  the  effect  that  if  we  were  as 
much  improved  by  the  change  as  she  was  I  considered 
myself  flattered. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  serenely.  She  looked  at  me 
critically,  one  eyebrow  raised.  "You've  improved,  of 
course,  although  you're  still  too  thin  to  be  a  perfect 
Adonis." 

"But  I'm  strong,"  I  argued,  sliding  toward  her.  "Let 
me  demonstrate." 

"No  you  don't!"  She  threatened  me  with  the  chain. 
"I  haven't  drawn  a  deep  breath  since  last  night." 

Like  Caesar,  I  overcame. 

"But  we  have  changed,"  she  went  on.  "You're  not  the 
same,  neither  is  Dick.  And  mother — has  she  told  you 
about  her  'investments'?" 

Her  tone  implied  a  contempt  of  investments.  Now  that 
I  thought  of  it,  Mrs.  Alden  had  changed ;  I  recalled  vague 
allusions  to  finance,  instead  of  the  usual  small  gossip  and 
talk  about  her  husband.  By  this  time  all  hope  of  Mr. 
Alden  returning  from  the  Klondike  had  vanished. 

"Mother  has  some  money  of  her  own,  you  know,"  she 
said,  and  hesitated. 

"I  know,"  I  said  quickly.  I  had  always  suspected  that 
Alden  had  been  a  parasite. 

"And  lately  Mr.  Learoyd  has  been  handling  it  for  her — 
stocks,  you  know.  That's  his  business.  Just  guessing, 
they  are — like  that  Italian  game  you  showed  me  once, 
morro — morra,  is  it?  If  you  guess  the  right  number  of 
fingers  you  win." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"But  they  seem  to  be  guessing  right.  Mother's  been 
talking  about  the  old  Carver  place,  and  if  everything  goes 
well  she  intends  to  buy  it  in  the  spring.  She's  worse  than 


154  FLOOD  TIDE 

father  ever  was — she  doesn't  tell  me  about  anything  but 
goes  about  mumbling  to  herself,  like  a  silly  old  conspira- 
tor." 

It  seemed  funny  then,  but  somehow  or  other  the  jest 
has  since  lost  its  savor.  There  was  something  incongru- 
ous in  this  linking  of  finance  and  Mrs.  Alden;  I  have 
laughed  since  to  think  of  it,  but  I  have  laughed  at  myself 
and  not  at  her. 

"I  hope  she  comes  out  all  right,"  she  continued.  "I 
hope — but  I'm  always  hoping.  It  doesn't  seem  to  do  any 
good." 

This  was  a  criticism  of  life  which  I  never  met.  How 
could  I?  She  was  tired  of  living  in  a  world  of  possibili- 
ties and  I  had  no  actualities  to  offer. 

"Like  the  Lady  of  Shalott,"  she  said  gloomily.  "Al- 
ways shadows — and  more  shadows.  .  .  .  Oh  well!" 

I  went  back  to  work  filled  with  the  determination  to 
hurry  things  along,  labored  feverishly  for  a  week  or  so, 
and  then  had  to  undo  my  work  and  go  more  slowly.  How- 
ever much  I  struggled  against  the  innate  inertia  of  time, 
I  struggled  in  vain.  For  a  time  I  thought  seriously  of 
giving  up  Hatherly's  and  devoting  myself  entirely  to  our 
plans.  But  I  decided  to  stay ;  I  had  to  make  a  living  and 
by  leaving  Hatherly's  I  would  cut  myself  off  from  all 
chances  of  observing  the  mistakes  of  others. 


vn 

Stowell  stayed  home  for  two  weeks,  then  drifted  in  un- 
announced one  evening.  Marks  had  dropped  in  at  my 
room  on  his  way  home;  Stowell  interrupted  our  planning. 

"Dull  old  place,"  he  commented.  "I  stood  it  as  long 
as  I  could." 

He  yawned  and  started  on  the  pile  of  mail  that  had 
accumulated  during  his  absence.  Marks  and  I  went  on 
with  our  discussion.  We  were  working  over  one  of  our 
semi-final  problems  then,  making  a  plot  of  the  arrange- 


FLOOD  TIDE  155 

ment  of  our  floor  space,  working  in  all  the  suggestions 
and  ideas  which  we  had  been  gathering  for  months.  We 
had  taken  the  best  from  each  store  and  it  made  a  good 
showing  on  the  plan.  We  were  so  engrossed  that  we  failed 
to  notice  that  Stowell  had  abandoned  his  reading  and 
stood  behind  us.  There  came  a  lull  in  our  talk  and  he 
broke  in. 

"Where's  the  stove  and  sand-box?"  he  demanded.  "You 
can't  run  a  store  without  a  stove  for  them  to  put  their 
feet  against,  can  you?" 

Marks  started  to  explain  and  object,  but  Stowell  cut 
him  short. 

"Perhaps  you  don't  plan  to  have  Fire  Worshipers," 
he  said.  "Let  me  look  at  your  plan ;  this  black  and  white 
stuff  is  something  in  my  line." 

He  bent  over  the  sheet  as  we  pointed  out  the  arrange- 
ments to  him,  rather  proud  of  our  work. 

"I  wish  I  knew  enough  to  criticize  this  intelligently." 
He  put  his  finger  on  the  shelves  at  the  right  of  the  plan. 
"How  much  clearance  between  these?" 

We  weren't  sure. 

"You  know  the  average  size  of  the  cans  you're  intend- 
ing to  fill  them  with?"  he  continued  patiently. 

"About  so  high,"  said  Marks  and  held  up  his  hand,  in- 
dicating the  height  between  thumb  and  forefinger. 

"I  see,"  said  Dick  soberly.  "Just  as  high  as  a  piece 
of  string.  And  I  suppose  you  plan  to  sell  a  basketfull 
of  them  for  a  handful  of  money." 

Marks  scratched  his  head. 

"How  much  clearance  between  shelves  and  counters?" 

We  know  that,  for  I  had  gone  to  the  trouble  of  measur- 
ing it. 

"Rather  narrow,"  decided  Dick.  "You'll  have  your 
clerks  scraping  past  each  other  all  the  time,  dropping 
stuff  and  getting  in  the  way.  Better  make  it  wider. 
There's  another  thing;  you  don't  want  all  this  scraping 


156  FLOOD  TIDE 

and  scrouging  around  behind  the  counters.  Arrange 
your  stuff  so  one  man  can  fill  any  reasonable  order." 

I  objected.  We  had  taken  these  things  from  actual 
practice. 

"That's  no  argument  at  all,"  he  retorted.  "Start  in 
from  the  bottom  and  build  up.  Throw  these  old  ideas 
overboard." 

Marks  grinned  at  me;  here  was  my  own  argument  used 
against  me. 

"What  else  is  wrong?"  I  asked. 

"I  don't  know — probably  a  lot  of  things,"  he  said 
thoughtfully.  "I  wish  you'd  take  me  in  with  you  and 
give  me  a  chance  to  find  out." 

Marks  and  I  looked  at  each  other  in  astonishment. 

"Well "  Marks  began. 

"One  minute,"  Dick  interrupted,  and  produced  a  letter. 
"I've  just  had  good  news  and  bad  news.  That  lighthouse 
proposition  has  fallen  through.  That's  the  bad  news. 
The  other — read  this." 

He  tossed  me  a  letter  with  a  vivid  orange  stamp  on  the 
envelope.  I  spelled  it  out  slowly,  for  my  Spanish  had 
gone  rusty  with  disuse,  and  found  it  an  offer  of  twenty 
thousand  pesos  for  Senor  Stowell's  option  on  a  certain 
piece  of  land  in  Chile. 

"Nitrate  workings,"  he  explained,  and  refused  to  go 
further. 

"But  twenty  thousand " 

"That  probably  means  five  thousand  gold  when  old 
Garcilasso  gets  through  wailing  about  hard  times  and 
sickness  in  his  family — he's  related  to  more  invalids  than 
you  can  imagine.  The  option  alone  is  worth  five  times 
what  he  offers ;  he's  probably  got  up  some  sort  of  a  dicker 
with  the  English  firm  that  was  nosing  around  when  I  left. 
.  .  .  But  here's  my  proposition.  You'll  need  all  the 
capital  you  can  get.  Good.  You  two  dreamers  need  a 
guardian — a  practical  man.  Also  good.  I  offer  you  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  157 

two  at  once — with  my  undeniable  good  looks  thrown  in. 
How  about  it?" 

Marks  looked  at  me.     I  laughed. 

"Sit  down,"  said  Marks.  "We're  not  laughing  at  you. 
The  funny  part  of  it  is  that  we  decided  a  month  ago  that 
we  couldn't  get  along  without  you." 

I  nodded  confirmation. 

Dick  laughed.  "And  I  decided  a  month  ago  that  I  was 
tired  of  knocking  around.  This — say,  what  have  you 
named  this  scheme  of  yours?  No  name  yet?  Why  not 
just  The  Stores?  Simple,  dignified  and — and  inclusive." 

"There's  an  idea,"  agreed  Marks. 

And  so  it  was. 


vm 

As  our  plans  neared  completion  I  went  home,  for  the 
first  time  since  our  Christmas  excursion.  Stowell  and 
Marks  had  secured  their  part  of  the  amount  needed  for 
our  start,  Marks  through  some  mysterious  channel  of  his 
own  and  Stowell  from  his  Don  Garcilasso.  I  planned  to 
borrow  my  part  from  my  father,  or,  rather,  to  persuade 
him  to  invest. 

I  had  little  trouble  in  persuading  him.  I  had  already 
written  to  him  when  I  thought  the  state  of  our  plans  war- 
ranted it,  and  he  already  knew  a  great  deal  about  our 
plans,  although  he  looked  dismayed  when  I  spread  out 
the  calculations,  blue  prints  and  other  proofs  which  I  had 
brought  home. 

"You  remember  the  old  saying?"  he  asked.  "'There 
are  three  kinds  of  lies — lies,  damned  lies  and  statistics.' 
Just  tell  me  about  it." 

I  told  him.  He  had  a  few  questions  on  points  which 
I  had  failed  to  make  clear.  Then  he  agreed.  I  had  ex- 
pected it,  but  it  was  a  relief  to  know. 

"One  question  more,"  he  said  as  I  gathered  up  my  un- 
used proofs. 


158  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Yes?" 

"I  suppose  you  often  wish  that  you  were  teaching  school 
instead  of  mucking  around  with  low  things  like  groceries 
and  dollars?" 

"Very  often — about  once  a  year,"  I  answered. 

He   laughed. 

It  was  mid-a'fternoon  of  the  next  day  when  I  turned  up 
High  Street  to  the  old  Carver  house.  Mrs.  Alden's  "in- 
vestments" had  turned  out  well,  evidently,  for  of  late  what 
few  letters  I  had  received  from  Bess  had  been  brief  and 
hurried  scrawls  telling  of  the  troubles  of  moving  and  set- 
ting up  a  new  establishment.  I  had  loitered  about  the 
store  all  morning,  trying  to  get  up  courage  to  call;  I 
felt  a  curious  diffidence,  almost  amounting  to  fear,  about 
calling.  It  was  a  different  matter  from  just  running 
across  the  street. 

As  a  boy  I  had  always  had  a  reverence  of  High  Street 
and  something  of  it  came  back  to  me  that  afternoon.  To 
be  sure,  the  old  houses  on  either  side  had  lost  a  great  deal 
of  the  magnificence  with  which  my  imagination  had  en- 
dowed them;  their  lawns,  which  I  remembered  as  broad 
acres  of  smooth,  close-cropped  green,  had  contracted  some- 
how or  other  and  brought  the  houses  nearer  the  street. 
Here  was  the  Bixby  "mansion,"  once  a  veritable  Taj 
Mahal  with  its  red  and  green  slate  roof,  its  porte-cochere 
and  ginger-bread  work;  tawdry  enough  now,  and  in  most 
atrocious  architectural  taste,  I  thought.  And  beyond 
that  Captain  Carrol's  house  under  the  great  elm,  a  green 
and  white  colonial  place  which  I  had  once  despised  as  out 
of  date  and  now  found  unexpectedly  beautiful.  But  de- 
spite this  changed  view  High  Street  was  still  High  Street, 
the  Fifth  Avenue  of  my  boyhood,  a  Fifth  Avenue  vaulted 
over  with  the  interlacing  boughs  of  the  cathedral  elms 
whose  protruding  roots  made  the  sidewalks  perilous  on 
dark  nights.  I  was  still  somewhat  in  awe  of  it: 

I  reached  the  old  Carver  house.  Strange  how  these  old 
houses  clung  to  their  names ;  the  last  Carver  had  died 


FLOOD  TIDE  159 

twenty  years  ago,  but  the  name  still  remained — would  re- 
main, I  supposed,  long  after  the  family  had  passed  from 
memory.  It  took  more  than  fresh  paint,  striped  awnings 
at  every  window,  and  an  obtrusively  new  porch — like  a 
fresh  fringe  on  an  old  gown — to  bring  about  these  changes. 
Change  was  slow  in  towns  which  were  thriving  young  set- 
tlements when  Wolfe  stormed  the  Plains  of  Abraham. 
Even  the  tennis  court  at  the  side  of  the  house  would  still 
be  Madam  Carver's  garden  as  long  as  there  remained  in 
town  a  single  gray-beard  who  had  stolen  puckery  goose- 
berries and  currants  there  as  a  barefoot  boy.  .  .  . 

I  like  to  remember  Elizabeth  as  she  was  that  afternoon, 
slender,  all  in  white,  as  we  sat  on  the  terrace  at  the  side 
of  the  house  and  watched  the  players  in  the  court  below. 
It  was  one  of  those  May  days  which  steal  ahead  of  their 
proper  season,  a  breathless,  perfumed  ripple  of  summer. 
I  remember  a  pink  and  white  mist  of  apple  blossoms  amid 
the  light  green  of  the  orchard  across  the  hedge  and  a  stray 
scent  of  lilac  from  some  bold  and  early  bush.  There  was 
a  shifting  and  fragmentary  background  of  tennis-playing 
youths  and  young  girls — I  remembered  some  of  them  as 
having  been  in  short  trousers  and  pigtails  when  I  had  left 
for  college.  Mrs.  Alden,  grown  suddenly  self  assertive 
with  the  change  in  her  fortunes,  called  them  over  and  in- 
troduced them  one  by  one;  I  also  had  to  meet  Learoyd 
again.  Mrs.  Alden  always  made  a  state  matter  of  intro- 
ductions. 

When  Elizabeth's  mother  was  quite  sure  that  I  knew 
every  one  within  sight  she  showed  a  disposition  to  domi- 
nate the  conversation,  displaying  an  interest  in  The  Stores 
and  all  our  doings.  Apparently  she  thought  none  too 
highly  of  any  of  them,  and  I  am  afraid  that  my  answers 
to  her  questions  were  far  from  satisfactory.  I  was  con- 
scious of  a  sudden  weariness  of  everything  connected  with 
the  making  of  money.  I  found  myself  wandering  off  into 
a  futile  and  inconclusive  argument  with  her,  much  against 
my  will;  something  about  May  wheat  and  copper  stocks, 


160  FLOOD  TIDE 

things  of  which  I  knew  little  and  in  which  had  even  less 
interest.  I  have  a  vague  remembrance  of  her  use  of  high 
sounding  phrases  in  an  inexact  manner;  I  know  that  her 
attitude  toward  me  irritated  me  in  some  subtle  fashion. 
She  was  not  exactly  patronizing,  nor  yet  antagonistic, 
but  she  had  the  air  of  thinking  that  we  might  use  our 
money  to  better  advantage.  I  tried  to  cut  the  whole  dis- 
tasteful subject  short. 

"Whatever  money  I  make,"  I  declared,  "will  be  for 
service  rendered." 

She  blinked  at  that,  and  struck  off  at  a  new  angle  on 
a  garbled  and  distorted  version  of  the  old  capitalistic  ar- 
gument. I  answered  absently ;  I  felt  singularly  ill  at  ease. 
It  is  a  small  detail,  but  the  fact  that  I  wore  a  heavy  dark 
suit  while  the  rest  were  in  flannels  and  duck  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  my  feeling  of  discomfort.  I  was  entirely 
out  of  touch  with  this  sort  of  life.  I  suppose  it  was  the 
change  in  Bess  and  her  mother  more  than  anything;  Mrs. 
Alden  had  been  a  negligible  factor  before,  while  now  she 
seemed  to  assume  a  new  importance.  I  began  to  wonder  if 
this  change  was  going  to  affect  me.  There  seemed  an  im- 
measurable gap  between  this  new  way  of  living  and  the 
semi-squalidness  of  the  old  house  opposite  ours.  And  yet 
it  was  not  the  material  difference;  I  imagined  that  I  de- 
tected a  change  in  their  attitude  toward  me.  I  felt  that 
I  had  shrunk  in  importance.  Instead  of  being  welcomed, 
I  was  accepted.  I  was  outside.  They  talked  of  subjects 
which  I  didn't  understand  and  then  volunteered  no  ex- 
planations. I  didn't  like  it. 

Bess  perched  on  the  broad  railing  of  the  terrace  as  we 
talked.  She  entered  into  the  conversation  only  occasion- 
ally, and  then  only  in  answer  to  a  direct  question.  Be- 
tween times  she  plucked  nervously  at  a  climbing  vine. 

Finally  Learoyd  took  pity  on  me  and  left.  Mrs.  Alden 
walked  down  the  path  with  him — evidently  there  was  some 
discussion  which  demanded  privacy. 

"You  haven't  seen  the  house  yet,  have  you?"  Bess  asked. 


FLOOD  TIDE  161 

"It's  quite  different  from  the  old  place.  Let's  go — before 
mother  comes  back." 

She  was  evidently  quite  pleased  with  the  house.  I  re- 
member it  now  as  a  succession  of  high-studded  rooms  with 
pretentiously  decorated  ceilings,  a  narrow  hall  with  an 
obtrusive  black  walnut  newel  post  and  balustrade,  a  bare 
and  stifling  little  conservatory  off  the  dining  room  and 
everywhere  evidences  of  a  conflict  of  tastes  between  Bess 
and  her  mother.  There  were  old  pieces  of  furniture  from 
the  old  house  and  shiny  new  chairs  fresh  from  the  up- 
holsterers ;  in  the  dining  room  a  fish-and-game  abomina- 
tion confronted  an  ultra-modern  sideboard,  and  above 
every  fireplace — ineffectual  little  fireplaces  surrounded  by 
square  yards  of  tinted  tiling  and  carving — were  vast 
empty  spaces  of  mirrors  emphasizing  the  note  of  bare- 
ness and  incompletion.  Had  I  been  in  a  critical  mood  I 
might  have  pointed  out  these  incongruities,  but  Bess  was 
so  pleased  with  it  all  that  I  lacked  the  heart  to  do  it.  She 
appreciated  that  it  was  far  from  perfect. 

"There  are  a  lot  of  changes  to  be  made,"  she  said  doubt- 
fully, when  we  had  completed  our  inspection.  "Mother  in- 
sisted on  a  great  many  things  which  are  rather  absurd. 
.  .  .  Let's  go  outside." 

Whatever  absurdities  and  evidences  of  ill-taste  people 
put  into  their  houses  they  are  happily  unable  to  do  much 
toward  disfiguring  the  land  about  them;  Nature  mocks 
their  efforts  and  refuses  to  conform.  I  remember  quite 
clearly  the  clumps  of  evergreens,  once  trimmed  to  geomet- 
rical forms  but  now  grown  up  to  wildness,  the  low-groined 
vaults  of  the  orchard  with  drifts  of  fallen  petals  in  faint 
reflection  of  the  drifting  white  clouds,  and,  down  the  aisles 
of  gray  trunks,  the  gleam  of  the  misty  blue  headlands 
in  the  distance.  We  moved  through  the  chequered  sun- 
light and  shadow,  Bess  pointing  out  contemplated  changes 
and  I  more  engrossed  in  watching  the  play  of  the  alter- 
nate sunlight  and  shade  among  the  coils  of  her  coppery 


162  FLOOD  TIDE 

hair.  She  had  a  faint,  half  realized  idea  that  the  house 
fell  short  of  perfection. 

"If  it  were  only  all  as  beautiful  as  this,"  she  said  with 
a  half  sigh.  "But  we'll  have  things  in  order  by  autumn, 
whether  mother  likes  it  or  not." 

There  was  a  little  rustic  summer  house  among  the  pine 
clumps,  now  mercifully  covered  by  a  climbing  grape  vine 
which  was  just  beginning  to  send  out  wooly  little  shoots. 
And — final  note  of  New  England  splendor — before  the 
summer  house  was  a  pool,  with  a  boy-and-dolphin  fountain 
spouting  a  thin  tinkling  stream,  a  jet  which  flashed  into 
the  pool  and  fed  the  tiny  brook  which  dripped  slowly 
over  a  miniature  fall  and  wandered  away  between  stone 
banks.  I  wondered  idly  how  it  came  to  be  placed  in  this 
out-of-the-way  corner;  usually  they  were  set  on  the  front 
lawn  for  the  world  to  admire  and  envy.  We  sat  here  and 
drifted  off  into  talk  of  many  things. 

I  remember  nothing  of  what  we  said  at  first ;  I  imagine 
it  was  the  usual  catching  up  with  the  progress  of  events. 
My  feeling  of  strangeness  vanished ;  I  was  wonderfully  and 
indolently  contented  with  myself.  There  was  no  more 
planning  until  my  mind  frayed  off  into  rags,  but  the  reali- 
zation and  working  out  of  actualities. 

Bess  shifted  the  talk  to  nearer  grounds. 

"Tell  me  about  your  latest  plans,"  she  said.  "They 
interrupted  you  so  that  I  couldn't  get  all  of  it." 

"There's  not  much  to  tell,  beyond  what  I've  written 
you,"  I  answered.  "We're  ready  to  start — did  you  un- 
derstand that  my  father  has  come  in  with  us — finan- 
cially?" 

"That's  why  you  came  home — to  see  him?" 

"And  you,  of  course."  I  told  her  of  my  interview  of 
the  night  before. 

"That  puts  the  last  touches  on  it,"  I  said.  "We'll  be 
started  in  a  month.  But  it's  really  only  a  small  start. 
These  first  places  won't  amount  to  much  in  the  whole — 


FLOOD  TIDE  163 

just  a  trial  and  working  out  of  what  we  think  may  be 
good." 

"I  thought  you  were  ready  to  start  on  the  whole  thing," 
she  objected. 

"Hardly.  I  wish  we  could.  But  we  must  work  these 
matters  out  before  we  dare  to  apply  them  on  a  large  scale. 
It  takes  capital  to  make  a  big  start,  more  capital  than 
we  have,  even  if  we  dared  start  largely." 

"Couldn't  you  get  it?" 

"I  don't  know;  I  suppose  so,  if  we  tried.  But  you  see 
that  would  mean  outside  control." 

"But  you  could?     Then  why  don't  you?" 

"Oh !"  I  dismissed  the  idea  impatiently.  She  failed  to 
understand  that  we  wanted  to  be  independent,  to  have 
The  Stores  build  themselves  as  far  as  possible. 

"You're  so  sure  that  you're  right;  why  don't  you  go 
ahead?"  she  persisted. 

"We're  not  sure,  Bess.  That  is,  we  are  sure  that  the 
idea  is  sound,  but  uncertain  about  the  practical  side  of 
it.  We  intend  to  experiment,  to  find  out  the  best  ways 
before  we  get  in  so  far  that  change  will  be  expensive  and 
impossible." 

For  a  moment  I  congratulated  myself  on  my  adroit 
avoidance  of  a  threatened  difference. 

"But — no  matter."  Bess  watched  the  play  and  drift 
of  the  fountain  with  a  frown  wrinkling  her  forehead. 

"  'Wisely  and  slow ;  they  stumble  that  run  fast,'  "  I 
quoted,  "and  we  can't  risk  a  stumble.  We  must  learn  to 
walk  before  we  try  to  run." 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  answered  impatiently.  "How  long 
will  it  take  you  to  learn  to  walk?" 

"Marks  says  five  years,  Stowell  says  three,  and  I — I'm 
not  sure.  Somewhere  between  the  two,  perhaps.  It  de- 
pends on  your  definition  of  walking." 

"As  long  as  that?"  she  commented  absently. 

Three  years  isn't  a  lifetime,  I  thought  resentfully. 
Three  years  ago  I  was  a  green  cub,  just  getting  out  of 


164  FLOOD  TIDE 

college.  It  seemed  hardly  any  time  at  all.  And  three 
years  more  was  just  a  step.  And  three  years  after  that 
...  I  drifted  off  into  speculation  and  romancing.  I 
came  back  to  earth  violently. 

"How  long  have  we  been  engaged?"  Bess  was  asking. 

"Three  years — nearly." 

"As  long  as  that.     It  doesn't  seem  so  long,  does  it?" 

"No."     I  was  relieved  to  find  that  we  agreed. 

"I  thought  it  wouldn't — to  you." 

"It  seems  longer  to  you,  then?" 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "You  know  as  well  as  I 
that  a  week  here  is  a  year  anywhere  else." 

"But  you're  progressing — 

"From  one  cell  to  another — and  in  the  same  prison," 
she  completed. 

I  adopted  a  policy  of  silence.  That  sometimes  was 
successful  in  putting  an  end  to  these  fits  of  discontent. 
But  ordinary  methods  were  useless. 

"You  know  that  mother — doesn't  like  you?"  she  said 
slowly. 

"She  never  has,  Bess." 

"Do  you  know  why?" 

"I'm  not  worrying,"  I  answered  shortly.  "She  doesn't 
matter." 

"She  thinks  you're  like  my  father,"  Bess  said  quietly. 
,  "And  objects  because  of  that?  What  has  she  been 
saying?"  I  was  aroused  for  once. 

She  evaded  my  question.  "I'm  not  sure  but  she's  right 
—partly." 

"Thank  you,"  I  said  angrily. 

"There  is  a  likeness,"  she  went  on  steadily.  "He  was 
always  scheming  something — and — 

"Always  failing,"  I  completed  bluntly.  "I'm  just  the 
same,  I  suppose." 

"I  wish  I  knew."    She  puckered  her  brows  in  perplexity. 

This  comparison  to  Alden  angered  me.  That  irrespon- 
sible and  futile  dreamer!  There  was  no  comparison.  I 


FLOOD  TIDE  165 

must  have  muttered  to  myself  for  she  looked  up  with  a 
faint  smile. 

"I  know;  I'm  not  very  cheerful,  am  I?"  The  smile 
was  gone  as  quickly  as  it  came.  "I  have  nothing  to  be 
cheerful  over.  I'm  tired  to  death  of  living  here,  always 
living  in  hopes  of  something  just  around  the  corner — 
something  three  years  away — perhaps  still  further  distant. 
I'm  always  waiting  for  somebody — and  never  allowed  to 
do  anything  for  myself.  Just  waiting.  I'm  tired." 

"I  know."  I  rose  and  went  to  the  door  of  the  summer 
house.  There  was  nothing  new  in  this  complaint,  except 
perhaps  that  it  hurt  me  more  than  usual. 

"You  don't  know;  you  can't,"  her  voice  followed  me. 
"You  have  your  work,  and  I  have  nothing  but — a  lot  of 
trumpery  ways  of  passing  the  time.  Passing  time  isn't 
living.  I  can't  even  watch  things  being  done."  Her  voice 
dropped,  and  she  went  on.  "I  can't  look  ahead  three 
years." 

"I'm  in  the  same  position,"  I  reminded  her. 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"I'm  not  considering  you,"  she  said  deliberately.  "I've 
given  that  up.  I'm  just  thinking  of  myself.  .  .  .  Do  you 
love  me?" 

I  felt  her  hand  on  my  shoulder,  and  turned  to  find  her 
facing  me.  She  looked  at  me  beneath  level  brows. 

"You  know  I  do,"  I  answered,  with  a  catch  in  my  voice. 

"Then  take  me  out  of  this — now." 

"I  can't  Bess.  I'll  be  very  poor  for  at  least  two  years 
— perhaps  longer — perhaps  all  my  life.  This  is  the  most 
uncertain  time  of  all.  .  .  .  It's  no  easier  for  you  than  it 
is  for  me." 

"Then  it's— not  now?" 

The  appeal  went  out  of  her  voice  and  a  new  element  en- 
tered. Bess  was  never  more  desirable  than  at  that  mo- 
ment; I  made  my  answer  with  an  effort. 

"No,"  I  said. 


166  FLOOD  TIDE 

Her  hand  dropped.  "I  said  I  couldn't  wait,"  she  said 
wearily. 

I  stared  at  her.     "But  there's  no  other  solution." 

"There  is  always  a  third  way." 

"What?" 

"This." 

I  looked  down.  She  held  out  to  me  the  ring  which  I 
had  bought  with  my  first  savings  at  Hatherly's. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 


"WELL,  that's  ended,"  I  thought  savagely. 

I  had  been  stupefied  at  first;  there  was  no  warning  of 
this  rock  which  had  pierced  my  gilded  galley  of  dreams. 
All  about  me  clear  seas  and  sunny  weather,  stuns'l  breezes 
and  a  steady  glass — and  then  disaster.  I  tried  to  argue 
at  first,  hopeless  arguments  based  on  inessentials,  trying 
to  patch  up  the  break  and  go  on  as  before.  But  it  was 
too  deep  a  break  for  that.  Elizabeth  met  and  turned 
my  futile  reasons  with  a  weary  and  obstinate  shake  of 
her  head.  It  ended  by  my  throwing  the  ring  amid  the 
pattering  drops  of  the  little  fountain  in  the  pool. 

So  I  smoked  an  endless  succession  of  cigars  on  the  train 
and  thought  that  it  was  all  ended. 

But  it  was  far  from  that.  The  first  shock  passed,  after 
a  period  of  muzzy  self-recrimination.  I  settled  back  to 
work.  We  abandoned  Hatherly's  and  made  our  start.  In 
the  rush  and  bustle  of  establishment  I  worked  for  one 
thing  only — forgetfulness.  I  succeeded.  When  the  first 
breathing  spell  came  remembrance  was  a  tapping  on  a 
half  healed  wound  rather  than  a  tearing  apart  of  still 
raw  edges. 

But  I  was  still  hurt.  Worse  still,  and  utterly  damnable, 
I  was  bitter  against  Elizabeth.  I  saw  dimly  that  the  fault 
was  mine,  yet  stubbornly  held  out  that  the  break  was  none 
of  my  making.  Elizabeth  and  I  were  always  at  cross  pur- 
poses ;  we  looked  at  life  from  two  divergent  and  irrecon- 
cilable viewpoints.  Sooner  or  later  a  break  was  inevitable. 
We  were  fortunate  that  it  came  as  it  did  and  not  later 
...  So  I  thought,  and  through  sheer  inertia  went  on 
167 


168  FLOOD  TIDE 

planning,   working,   worrying   over   details.      Work   was 
good.     It.  excluded  other  thoughts. 

But  even  work  was  an  ineffectual  barrier  against  the 
truth.  In  time  this  irrational  bitterness  faded.  I  saw 
that  the  differences  which  had  driven  us  apart  should 
have  drawn  us  closer  together.  I  missed  the  inspiration 
of  Elizabeth's'  quickness,  her  eagerness,  missed  the  bal 
ancing  of  her  common  sense  against  my  flamboyant  im- 
agination. What  had  seemed  inherent  differences,  im- 
possible to  pass,  now  became  the  grating  or  ragged  edges 
which  time  would  have  worn  and  fitted.  More  than  once, 
as  we  translated  some  plan  into  actuality,  I  remembered 
that  Bess  had  suggested  this  or  criticized  that ;  I  felt  again 
that  momentary  quickening  of  the  pulse.  ...  I  drifted  off 
into  new  imaginings.  I  believed — and  still  believe — that 
Elizabeth's  quarrel  was  not  with  me,  but  with  this  alchem- 
istic  quality  within  me  which  transmuted  to-day's  solid 
reality  into  to-morrow's  problematical  El  Dorado.  But 
we  were  succeeding;  others  beside  myself  had  glimpsed 
the  distant  vision.  Stowell  planned  a  trip  home.  I  would 
go  with  him,  no  longer  a  futile  dreamer,  but  with  both 
feet  on  the  solid  ground  of  fact.  Penitent,  perhaps,  but 
penitent  in  the  knowledge  that  my  case  was  partly  proved. 
And  then 

But  Stowell  went  home  alone.  He  received  one  of  those 
fat  double  enclosures  which  had  troubled  me  so  during  the 
old  Boston  days ;  he  read,  and  passed  it  over  to  me  with- 
out comment.  Elizabeth  had  married  Learoyd.  .  .  . 

That  was  the  end.  The  future  held  but  one  thing,  The 
Stores.  All  else  in  life  had  been  taken  from  me,  lost  be- 
yond recovery.  And  lost  through  no  fault  but  my  own. 


Whatever  satisfaction  I  find  in  reviewing  the  growth 
of  The  Stores  is  connected  with  these  early  days.  It  was 
a  time  of  construction,  of  seeing  to-day's  imaginings  be- 


FLOOD  TIDE  169 

come  to-morrow's  realities.  Later,  when  The  Stores  was 
"Big  Business"  in  actuality  instead  of  potentiality,  we 
lost  touch  with  reality  and  wrestled  with  great  and  in- 
tangible abstractions.  But  in  the  first  days  it  .was  all 
real,  all  good.  I  am  a  dreamer,  but  no  thrill  of  the  dream- 
er's life  equals  that  of  beating  down  and  subduing  the 
stubbornness  of  raw  material.  This  was  my  one  touch 
of  it. 

Many  times  the  three  of  us  worked  far  into  the  night; 
more  than  once  I  remember  the  scrub-woman,  that  har- 
binger of  early  dawn,  coming  in  to  break  up  our  councils 
of  war.  I  recall  long  sessions  of  planning  in  our  first 
office,  a  sort  of  hanging  balcony  in  the  rear  of  one  of  the 
first  three  stores,  an  extraordinarily  cramped  and  incon- 
venient little  den  with  a  low  roof  which  forced  me  to  go 
around  with  a  perpetual  reverential  inclination  of  my 
head.  There  was  a  skylight  overhead,  a  convenient  exit 
for  cigar  smoke  and  an  entrance  for  a  pale,  filtered  imita- 
tion of  daylight.  Our  furnishings  were  of  the  simplest; 
an  immense  shiny  desk  with  a  roll-top — this  to  catch  the 
eye  of  the  casual  visitor  and  awe  him  with  its  magnifi- 
cence— and  another  desk  of  doubtful  age,  with  a  decrepit 
slant  top  and  hermetically  sealed  drawers.  There  was 
also  an  old  ark  of  a  typewriter,  second  cousin  to  a  drop 
forge  and  related  by  sound  to  a  McCormick  reaper. 
Stowell  used  this  as  a  gymnasium.  And,  in  the  intervals 
of  his  noisy  pounding,  we  planned  and  discussed  new 
things.  It  was  characteristic  of  these  early  days  that  we 
always  found  some  new  difficulty  to  chew  over  after  we 
had  disposed  of  the  day's  routine. 

"Say,"  Marks  would  blurt  out.  "What  the  devil's  the 
matter  with  our  windows?  No  good.  Unattractive. 
We've  got  to  figure  that  out.  Know  anything  about  it, 
Coffin?" 

I  didn't.  My  father's  procedure  scarcely  applied  here ; 
his  system  had  been  to  fill  the  windows  with  rakes  and 
hoes  in  the  spring,  and  with  a  variation  of  oilskins  and 


170  FLOOD  TIDE 

rubber  boots  in  the  fall.  But  I  developed  theories ;  Marks 
added  his  own  observations ;  Stowell  arranged  and  classi- 
fied them — and  there  was  another  problem  solved.  .  .  . 

Later  I  find  my  memories  connected  with  our  rooms — 
this  must  have  been  between  the  balcony  office  and  the 
Trumbull  period.  Here  we  had  McCollom  as  an  unsym- 
pathetic audience;  he  seemed  to  find  something  funny  in 
our  plans  and  was  forever  making  absurd  propositions 
and  egging  us  on  to  defensive  arguments.  We  were  un- 
democratic, he  asserted,  unfair;  we  were  merely  taking 
advantage  of  the  stupidity  of  others,  with  all  this  elimi- 
nation of  waste  and  useless  parts.  And,  as  most  people 
were  stupid  and  wasteful,  we  were  predatory.  We  de- 
prived people  of  the  right  to  life,  liberty  and  loaf.  Sto- 
well and  I  paid  small  attention  to  his  absurdities,  but 
occasionally  he  drew  Marks  into  fierce  debate.  Marks' 
sense  of  humor  was  flecked  with  blind  spots. 

Last  and  most  wonderful  event  of  this  period  was  our 
first  expansion.  The  abandonment  of  the  balcony  office 
was  the  end  of  our  period  of  trial.  We  gave  up  our  plans 
of  autonomous  financing  and  took  on  capital.  This  made 
a  forced  maturing  of  our  plans  at  once  possible  and  ob- 
ligatory. Greenwood  and  Lyons — geborn  Grunewald 
and  Lowengart — took  over  a  quarter  interest  in  our  plans 
and  supplied  funds  for  early  expansion.  They  were  sus- 
picious at  first,  very  suspicious ;  Greenwood  followed 
Marks  in  his  explanations  as  one  watches  a  magician  take 
eggs  and  rabbits  from  a  hat.  There  must  be  a  trick  some- 
where. Marks  rather  overdid  the  matter,  for  after  inves- 
tigation the  pair  came  around  and  made  an  offer  for  the 
controlling  interest.  We  finally  reached  an  agreement 
of  twenty-five  per  cent  and  a  sliding  scale  of  further  in- 
vestment. 

We  started  at  the  Trumbull  with  two  rooms  in  the  rear 
of  the  third  floor,  two  dingy  and  inconvenient  little  rooms 
looking  out  on  a  walled-in  court.  As  we  added  to  our 
chain  we  took  in  more  and  more  of  the  third  floor.  An 


FLOOD  TIDE  171 

enameled  brick  concern  in  the  office  beside  ours  moved  to 
better  quarters  and  we  acquired  their  space;  an  adver- 
tising agency  further  down  the  corridor  departed  between 
two  days  and  their  office  was  added  to  ours.  The  Trum- 
bull  was  an  outworn  old  trap,  fallen  from  high  estate 
to  a  nursery  of  new  fledged  ventures.  Firms  started  there, 
but  seldom  remained  for  any  length  of  time.  They  either 
failed  or  moved.  We  stayed  longer  than  any  of  our  neigh- 
bors, expanding  in  the  Trumbull  as  we  expanded  in  the 
city. 

One  suite  of  offices  we  were  unable  to  secure  and  we 
finally  overflowed  to  the  floor  below.  This  increased 
rather  than  diminished  our  difficulties.  Life  became  one 
perpetual  scramble  up  and  down  stairs. 

This  rambling,  planless  extension  became  at  last  a 
positive  menace.  We  were  in  danger  of  getting  inured  to 
this  lack  of  system ;  we  were  becoming  decentralized.  Mat- 
ters which  should  have  passed  off  as  mere  routine  became 
stumbling  blocks ;  it  was  impossible  to  keep  order  in  an 
office  which  had  no  definite  plan  of  being.  There  were 
innumerable  minor  vexations ;  orders  were  side  tracked 
and  forgotten,  papers  were  mislaid,  every  one  was  in  the 
way  of  every  one  else.  To  make  matters  still  worse,  the 
warehouse  which  we  had  hired  became  overcrowded  and  a 
great  deal  of  Stowell's  time  was  spent  in  untangling  ever 
recurrent  snarls.  We  grew  faster  than  we  had  expected 
and  our  clothes  began  to  pinch. 

Marks  had  a  final  interview  with  the  firm  which  held 
tenaciously  to  their  offices  on  our  floor.  He  returned 
flushed  and  angry. 

"Well?"  I  asked. 

He  grew  still  redder  in  the  face.  "They  called  us  a 
damned  lot  of  fly-by-night  grocers  and  said  that  they 
needed  our  offices  as  badly  as  we  need  theirs." 

"The  fly-by-night  part  of  it  was  a  good  tip,"  offered 
Stowell.  "I  wish  we  could." 

"We'd  better  get  that  warehouse  going  as  soon  as  we 


172  FLOOD  TIDE 

can,"  said  Marks  more  calmly.  "We've  waited  too  long 

as  it  is.  But  if  we  can  bully  Greenwood  into  it And 

it'll  mean  that  we'll  have  to  stop  growing  for  a  while." 

Some  recollection  of  his  recent  interview  came  to  him 
and  he  swore  under  his  breath. 

"Let  them  have  them,  then.  Lucky  thing  we've  got 
those  plans  alrteady  drawn." 

So  we  started  our  second  period,  that  of  the  great 
warehouse  up  town.  But  still,  with  all  its  inconveniences, 
I  like  to  look  back  on  the  Trumbull.  It  was  grimy  and 
small  and  cockroach-infested,  but  every  day  brought 
something  new.  The  monotony  of  the  later  and  greater 
days  was  a  thing  of  the  future.  I  like  to  remember  the 
dingy  old  walls  with  their  false  paneling,  the  warped 
old  inlaid  floors — Stowell  swore  it  was  an  imitation  of 
oil  cloth — the  clank  of  the  press  across  the  court  and  the 
click  of  typewriters  from  the  rooms  along  the  dusky  hall- 
way— for  every  click  and  clank,  so  much  done. 

I  remember  long  sessions  of  planning  over  the  wall  map 
of  the  city,  dotted  with  colored  pins  showing  stores  es- 
tablished and  projected ;  long  sessions  of  planning,  schem- 
ing and  dreaming.  It  was  all  good,  even  to  the  rusty  old 
elevator  which  bore  us  up  and  down,  always  starting  with 
a  jerk,  like  a  tired  old  horse  flicked  with  the  whip,  forever 
threatening  to  die  between  floors — and  never  doing  it. 


m 

To  recall  these  memories  is  like  reviewing  a  traveled 
road.  The  impressions  of  the  first  few  miles  are  clearer 
and  sharper  than  those  which  come  after  the  senses  are 
dulled  by  fatigue.  Even  so  the  impressions  of  the  first 
few  years  of  The  Stores  are  clearer  than  those  of  the 
later  and  greater  days. 

These  were  the  Great  Days  of  Little  Things.  It  was 
a  time  of  engrossment  in  trifles,  of  testing  and  rejection, 
of  incessant  search  for  the  best  and  simplest  methods  of 


FLOOD  TIDE  173 

doing  business.  Every  small  trouble  was  big  to  us  then, 
big  because  in  its  solution  lay  the  solution  of  greater 
troubles  later  on.  The  three  Mother  Stores  were  labo- 
ratories in  which  we  tested  out  our  theories,  changing, 
readjusting,  discarding  sometimes,  but  always  working 
toward  the  inevitable  formula. 

During  the  later  years  of  The  Stores  I  used  to  look 
back  on  these  first  days  as  a  sort  of  Heroic  Age.  Seen 
through  the  mists  of  distance  the  three  of  us  appeared  as 
supermen,  always  building  well  and  wisely,  never  falter- 
ing in  purpose,  forever  judging  and  disposing  with  su- 
perior wisdom.  But  now  I  see  that  we  were  only  two 
ordinary  young  men  and  a  middle  aged  man,  after  all. 
We  made  mistakes,  many  mistakes ;  we  disregarded  advice, 
flew  in  the  face  of  common  sense,  failed  to  see  the  most 
obvious  truths  until  we  were  clubbed  into  seeing — and 
came  through  it  safely  after  all.  That  is  now  my  main 
source  of  wonder. 

We  were  very  fortunate.  Our  good  fortune  came  not 
only  in  that  we  got  more  than  our  share  of  the  "breaks" 
of  the  game,  but  in  the  way  the  right  people  came  to  us 
at  the  right  time.  We  were  favored  of  the  gods.  Jimmy 
Golderick  had  a  run-in  with  Hatherly,  threw  up  his  job 
and  came  over  to  us.  A  friend  of  Stowell's  drifted  in 
and  revolutionized  our  purchasing  system  before  he  tired 
of  New  York  and  drifted  out  again.  Miss  Davenant 
came,  first  as  an  occasional  stenographer  from  the  agency 
around  the  corner,  later,  at  Stowell's  suggestion,  as  a  reg- 
ular member  of  the  staff.  She  was — and  is — wonderful 
in  all  ways.  Our  files  became  files  instead  of  disorderly 
accumulations  and  Marks  bellowed  helplessly  when  he  mis- 
placed a  requisition  sheet.  She  stayed  with  us  six  years 
and  each  year  became  more  indispensable;  she  graduated 
from  typist  to  statistician  to  advertising  expert — those 
little  topheavy  figures  which  featured  the  later  advertising 
of  The  Stores  were  her  creation — until  finally  she  grad- 
uated out  of  The  Stores  entirely. 


174  FLOOD  TIDE 

We  expanded  and  prospered.  Marks  took  a  place  out 
in  Connecticut  and  acquired  a  motor.  Stowell  and  I 
financed  the  rebuilding  of  the  old  rooms  on  the  lower 
West  Side,  just  above  the  wholesale  district.  Worthing- 
ton  suggested  it,  I  think,  I  planned  it,  and  Stowell  car- 
ried it  out.  McCollom  sat  about  and  told  the  world  how 
much  better  he  would  do  it.  For  a  while  we  lived  in  a 
wilderness  of  plaster  and  torn-out  partitions,  but  grad- 
ually order  came  out  of  chaos.  There  was  one  large  room 
across  the  front  with  a  fireplace,  long  hidden  beneath 
plaster  and  now  brought  to  light,  across  one  end;  there 
was  a  long  window  seat  beneath  the  low  row  of  casements 
which  looked  out  over  a  jumble  of  roofs  and  a  distant 
glimpse  of  the  river.  In  the  rear  were  four  chambers  and 
a  box  of  a  kitchen,  presided  over  by  Skip,  now  emanci- 
pated from  scrubbing  and  installed  as  joint  valet,  occa- 
sional cook  and  grand  custodian  of  the  dust  rag. 

We  refurnished  and  redecorated,  Worthington  con- 
tributing startling  examples  of  modern  art  and  the  rest 
of  us  following  our  own  bents.  McCollom  contributed 
nothing  save  sundry  decorations  of  a  purely  temporary 
character  in  the  shape  of  wearing  apparel  strewn  about 
the  living  room.  He  was  a  great  deal  of  a  nuisance.  I 
had  sent  down  from  Whitehaven  some  of  the  best  of  my 
daubs  and  the  old  model  of  a  frigate  that  had  stood  on 
the  book  case  at  home.  "The  Pirate  Barque,"  Worthing- 
ton insisted  on  calling  her,  and  regaled  our  visitors  with 
bloody  tales  of  the  slaver  of  which  he  swore  she  was  a 
model. 

"That's  why  Coffin  is  so  mysterious  and  broody,"  he 
would  whisper.  "Black  ivory,  you  know;  foundation  of 
the  family  fortune.  They  say  that  at  times — shhh!  here 
he  is!"  And  the  unsophisticated  visitor  would  gaze  on 
me  with  awe,  as  a  man  accursed  and  haunted. 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 


THE  warehouse  was  Stowell's  work.  Our  expansion 
ceased  during  the  building  of  this  central  ganglion  and 
he  came  in  to  supervise  the  construction.  He  enjoyed 
dealing  again  with  the  clean  actualities  of  concrete  and 
steel;  in  fact,  we  all  took  a  deal  of  pleasure  in  it.  Even 
Greenwood  and  Lyons  were  faintly  pleased,  although  they 
made  the  inevitable  objections  to  the  expense. 

I  remember  particularly  one  day  when  we  inspected  the 
nearly  completed  building — Sunday  it  must  have  been,  for 
there  were  no  workmen  around.  We  wandered  about,  Sto- 
well  acting  as  guide.  We  inspected  the  shipping  rooms 
on  the  first  floor,  and,  in  vision,  saw  the  arcade  at  one 
end  filled  with  rows  of  trucks. 

"Motor  trucks,  when  they  get  through  experimenting 
with  'em,"  said  Marks.  "Notice  how  they've  just  copied 
horse  trucks,  high  seat  and  all?" 

We  passed  on,  climbing  half  completed  stairs  and  rough 
ladders,  to  the  office  floor  above.  We  paused  there  a 
while,  surveying  the  vast  expanse  of  flooring  with  the  three 
rows  of  stubby  pillars,  the  batteries  of  elevators  at  either 
end,  the  sprouts  and  indications  of  partitions  that  would 
later  divide  one  department  from  another.  Above  that 
was  the  warehouse  proper,  three  floors  with  webs  of  steel 
truckways  converging  on  the  elevators. 

Marks  looked  wise  over  some  blueprints  on  a  rough 
table.  Stowell  explained  to  me,  in  words  of  one  syllable, 
that  the  scrolls  and  whorls  of  whitewash  on  the  windows 
were  not  evidence  of  delicacy  and  desire  for  privacy  on 
the  part  of  the  builders. 

175 


176  FLOOD  TIDE 

"So  they  won't  mistake  glass  for  air  and  try  to  throw 
stuff  through  it,"  he  explained.  "It's  as  big  as  a  drill 
hall,  isn't  it?  We  should  have  kept  the  old  boat  to  run 
around  in." 

I  agreed  absently.  This  structure  of  concrete,  steel 
and  glass  was  the  proof  of  success.  This  was  permanent. 
The  last  of  my  fears  vanished;  this  was  an  end  of  the 
doubts  and  presages  of  disaster  which  had  oppressed  me 
at  our  start. 

"We're  there,"  I  said  aloud. 

"Forty  ways,"  agreed  Stowell,  taking  the  phrase  as 
slang. 

"We've  arrived,  I  mean.  I've  been  afraid,  but  that's 
over  with.  I'm  convinced." 

"Convinced  of  what?"  interjected  Marks. 

"That  we've  succeeded." 

"We  have,  after  a  fashion."  He  looked  around,  half 
satisfied  and  yet  half  frowning.  "We've  got  a  good  foun- 
dation, if  that's  what  you  mean.  We  can  start  to  do 
things  now."  He  hummed  absent-mindedly  for  a  moment, 
his  eyes  fixed  on  some  distant  vision,  then  returned  to 
his  blue  print. 

Stowell  looked  at  him  with  faint  traces  of  amusement. 
"We  can  pay  some  attention  to  our  people  now,  for  one 
thing,"  he  advanced. 

Marks  challenged  him  with  a  glance.     "For  instance?" 

"Our  responsibility  to  them  doesn't  end  with  the  pay 
envelope,"  Dick  answered. 

"You're  still  thinking  of  that  educational  stunt  of 
yours,  then,"  Marks  asserted.  "Well,  there  might  be 
money  in  it.  ...  As  for  this  being  the  end — you're  off 
your  feed,  Coffin." 

I  was  conscious  of  my  first  feeling  of  distaste  for  The 
Stores.  I  was  satisfied,  in  a  way,  with  what  we  had  built ; 
Stowell  and  Marks  saw  my  source  of  satisfaction  only  as 
a  secure  foundation  for  further  structures.  Still  it  was 
merely  a  momentary  dissatisfaction,  a  swift  and  transient 


FLOOD  TIDE  177 

blurring  of  the  mirror.  I  had  found  the  Ultima  Thule  of 
my  ambitions ;  it  hurt  me  to  have  these  others  consider 
it  merely  as  a  point  of  departure. 

"Say,"  said  Marks,  looking  up  from  the  blue  print. 
"Do  you  suppose  that  we  could  add  a  couple  of  wings, 
one  at  each  end,  some  day?" 


At  that  time  I  was  unconscious  of  any  flagging  of  my 
interest  in  The  Stores.  I  realized,  in  a  dim  way,  that 
Marks  and  Stowell  had  discovered  new  interests  while  I 
had  not.  But  there  was  no  apparent  change  in  our  re- 
lations. We  worked  together,  as  before.  Perhaps  Marks 
was  a  bit  more  self  assertive  than  in  the  Tmmbull  days; 
perhaps  Stowell  was  more  engrossed  in  his  own  plans 
than  in  carrying  out  mine.  I'm  not  sure.  As  I  say,  at 
this  time  I  was  only  faintly  aware  of  this  shadow  of  per- 
sonal failure  that  bordered  our  shining  business  success. 

Marks,  I  know,  became  daily  more  aggressive,  more 
sure  of  himself.  He  became  staccato  in  his  speech,  abrupt 
— like  Hatherly,  in  fact.  I  wonder  if  the  habit  of  steno- 
graphic dictation  is  evolving  a  new  manner  of  speech  among 
us?  With  our  success  his  emotions  came  nearer  the  sur- 
face; he  abandoned  the  old  suggestive,  conciliatory 
method.  "Nonsense!"  became  a  favorite  term  of  his. 

Stowell  also  changed.  His  plans  materialized  in  his 
school  system. 

"Carrying  the  Torch,"  he  called  it.  During  the  latter 
days  of  the  Trumbull  period  we  had  found  difficulty  in 
selecting  men  for  promotion.  We  expanded  rapidly,  so 
rapidly  that  we  lost  personal  touch  with  our  employees. 
We  made  mistakes;  flashy  men — "morning-glories" — 
came  to  the  top;  we  promoted  on  recommendation  and 
suffered  from  the  inevitable  aftermath  of  wire-pulling  and 
discontent.  There  was  an  intangible  slackening  in  the 


178  FLOOD  TIDE 

work,  a  subtle  lack  of  interest  which  we  recognized  but 
were  unable  to  isolate.  Stowell  finally  found  it. 

"The  trouble  is,"  he  expounded,  "that  these  people 
haven't  the  slightest  idea  what  they're  doing.  They're 
mechanical.  They  know  that  they're  selling  stuff  and 
keeping  books,  but  they  haven't  the  least  idea  why  they're 
doing  it  or  just  where  their  work  fits  in  the  whole." 

"Nine- tenths  of  them  do  just  enough  work  to  keep  their 
jobs,"  growled  Marks. 

"They  need  education,"  affirmed  Stowell.  "And  I'm 
going  to  give  it  to  them.  I'm  no  LL.  D.  but  I  think  I  can 
swing  it." 

So  he  wrote  his  book,  or  rather  he  and  McCollom  com- 
piled it.  This  was  the  first  and  last  service  McCollom 
did  for  us;  soon  after  that  he  received  a  legacy  of  a  few 
thousand  and  became  editor  of  the  Tri-County  something 
or  other  out  in  Illinois  and  we  saw  no  more  of  him. 

The  book  was  nothing  more  than  a  treatise  on  ele- 
mentary economics,  intermixed  with  a  clear  account  of 
the  conduct  of  The  Stores  and  with  illustrations  drawn 
from  that  source.  From  first  to  last  it  was  clear  and 
concise,  free  from  technicalities,  very  simple  and  yet  illu- 
minating. Marks  frowned  on  it  at  first  but  was  soon  won 
over. 

"We're  not  running  a  publishing  house,  Stowell,"  he 
objected. 

"But  we  are  running  a  business,"  answered  Dick,  "and 
our  success  rests  first  and  last  on  the  interest  our  people 
show  in  it.  They  can't  be  interested  in  a  thing  unless  they 
have  at  least  a  dim  idea  of  what  it's  all  about." 

"How  are  you  going  to  make  them  read  it?" 

"Conduct  examinations.  No  promotions  for  any  one 
until  he  understands  what  he's  doing." 

Marks  was  noncommittal. 

"Merely  a  matter  of  creating  ambition  through  under- 
standing," explained  Stowell.  "Read  it  yourself;  we  can 
always  learn  something." 


FLOOD  TIDE  179 

It  brought  the  desired  results.  After  that  I  think  that 
there  was  a  keener  interest  throughout  the  whole  web ;  our 
people  saw  themselves  as  parts  of  the  whole  and  not  as 
fragments  dropped  at  random.  There  is  always  a  ten- 
dency for  each  man  to  make  his  particular  position  a 
"mystery" ;  to  discourage  those  below  him  by  putting  on 
an  air  of  importance.  We  did  away  with  this.  Men  in 
general  have  a  childish  fear  of  the  unknown;  take  away 
the  mystery  and  they  lose  their  fear. 

As  a  supplement  to  this  educational  scheme  Stowell  and 
Miss  Davenant  started  the  weekly  paper  which  was  the 
final  link  in  binding  the  loose  structure  of  our  stores  to- 
gether. It  was  a  small  affair  of  four  pages,  not  so  much 
a  paper  as  a  weekly  report.  There  is  a  stimulus  in  see- 
ing one's  name  in  print  which  can  be  secured  in  no  other 
way.  This  paper  created  a  healthy  rivalry  between  units 
and  brought  results  in  the  form  of  increased  sales.  Marks 
chuckled  in  delight. 

This  torch  carrying  reacted  on  Stowell.  A  department 
store  down  town  awoke  to  the  fact  that  we  were  getting 
results  in  a  novel  manner.  Stowell  was  invited  to  ex- 
plain. A  Philadelphia  publishing  house  sent  over  an  in- 
vestigator. Allardyce,  of  Columbia,  offered  suggestions 
based  on  theoretical  sociology.  After  a  time  Stowell  be- 
came expert  in  discussion  of  "fields" ;  he  dripped  odds 
and  ends  of  sociological  jargon.  He  developed  a  credit- 
able platform  presence,  after  some  early  failures,  and 
became  more  deeply  involved  in  spreading  light.  Marks 
viewed  with  alarm. 

Then,  lastly  and  inevitably,  Stowell  became  a  victim 
of  the  amateur  welfare  workers — these  enthusiastic  and 
sometimes  misguided  people  who  vicariously  experience 
poverty  by  shifting  their  interest  from  society  to  society. 
He  addressed  Committees  of  Ten,  Committees  of  One  Hun- 
dred, Committees  which  were  even  more  brazen  in  adver- 
tising their  intent — Shopgirl's  Leagues  and  Amelioration 
Associations  of  one  sort  or  another.  Sometimes  weeks 


180  FLOOD  TIDE 

passed  with  Stowell  engaged  for  every  afternoon  and  eren- 
ing.  Marks  became  disgusted. 

"Off  again?"  he  asked,  with  a  touch  of  sarcasm  in  his 
voice. 

"Yours  truly,  Finnigin,"  answered  Stowell  briskly. 
He  whistled  to  himself. 

"And  this  time?"  pursued  Marks. 

"Calpurnia  Club.  They  thirst  for  information  on  our 
work." 

"Important,  no  doubt?" 

"Rather.    Allardyce  will  be  there,"  Stowell  defended. 

"I've  no  doubt  but  it's  perfectly  respectable,"  said 
Marks  dryly.  "You've  settled  this  matter  of  the  Eighth 
Avenue  store?" 

"Leave  that  to  Conklin,  can't  you?"  Stowell  smiled  un- 
easily as  he  caught  Marks'  accusing  eye.  "I  know,  I'm 
getting  into  this  stuff  pretty  deep.  That's  the  second 
time  in  a  week  I've  shoved  things  off  on  Conklin." 

"Perhaps  Conklin  appreciates  his  new  responsibility," 
said  Marks  flatly.  "I'm  sure  we  don't." 

Stowell  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "I'll  be  through  at 
five  o'clock,"  he  offered  finally.  "Why  can't  you  call  for 
me  on  your  way  home?  Bring  Coffin  and  we'll  decide  that 
to-night." 

Marks  assented  ungraciously.  "We've  got  to  take  you 
when  we  can  get  you,  I  suppose." 

Stowell  disregarded  the  implied  complaint.  "You  know 
the  place,  don't  you?"  He  named  the  town,  a  semi-fash- 
ionable suburb.  "Call  for  me  any  time  after  five ;  I'll  cut 
the  talk  short  and  then  we'll  have  the  whole  evening  to 
ourselves." 

He  swung  out,  vastly  pleased  with  himself. 

Marks  voiced  his  complaint.  "Calpurnia  Club!  A  lot 
of  women  with  nothing  to  take  up  their  time,  most  likely. 
Loafers.  I  know  the  kind.  They  listen  and  you  get  a 
vote  of  thanks — and  then  they  forget  all  about  it.  It's  a 


FLOOD  TIDE  181 

waste  of  time  and  I  don't  see  why  Stowell  persists  in  it. 
Now  if  he'd  get  interested  in  something  useful ' 

"Like  raising  hogs?"  I  suggested. 

"Like  raising  hogs,"  he  assented.  "You  get  some  re- 
turn out  of  that." 

Some  queer  twist  of  revolt  against  ritualistic  restraint 
had  led  Marks  to  turn  ten  acres  of  his  Connecticut  place 
into  a  model  piggery.  His  sows  and  his  motors  were  his 
sole  interests  outside  The  Stores. 

"I've  a  good  mind  not  to  call  for  him  after  all,"  he 
meditated. 

in 

But  we  called  for  him,  despite  Marks'  threat.  We 
found  the  place  after  repeated  inquiries  along  the  road. 
It  proved  a  converted  dwelling  house,  evidently  newly  re- 
modeled for  the  uses  of  a  Civic  Center. 

"I  wish  there  was  some  way  of  getting  Stowell  away 
from  this  stuff,"  complained  Marks  as  we  drew  alongside 
the  curb.  He  regarded  the  building  morosely.  "  'Civic 
Center.'  Huh!  Huh!  Going  in?  I'll  wait  here." 

He  snorted  disapproval  and  started  figuring  on  the 
back  of  an  envelope. 

I  went  in.  A  wooden  faced  colored  maid  in  a  neat  apron 
regarded  me  with  stolid  suspicion.  I  explained  my  errand 
and  was  directed  to  double  doors  at  the  end  of  the  hall. 
Through  the  oval  glass  I  saw  Stowell  at  the  further  end 
of  the  room.  I  retain  an  impression  of  scattered  chairs, 
some  forty  of  them  at  the  further  end  of  the  room  occu- 
pied by  animate  femininity,  the  nearer  ones  decorated  with 
inanimate  femininity  in  the  form  of  furs.  Stowell  caught 
my  accusing  eye  and  glanced  at  his  watch.  Through  the 
door  I  caught  his  muffled  voice: 

" — and  so,  in  summary " 

He  swept  on  to  a  brief  conclusion,  bowed,  had  his  re- 
ward in  a  thin  patter  of  gloved  applause,  and  vanished 
in  a  side  room. 


182  FLOOD  TIDE 

The  chairwoman  rose,  a  regal  creature  in  shimmer- 
ing black  lace,  evidently  embarrassed  by  his  abrupt  con- 
clusion. 

"I'm  sure  that  we  owe  Mr. — ,"  she  consulted  her  notes 
furtively,  " — Mr.  Stowell  our  thanks.  I  feel  that  he  has 
illuminated  matters  for  all  of  us.  But  since  there  is  yet 
some  time  left — ; — " 

Amid  a  flutter  and  subdued  buzz  she  went  on  to  the 
discussion  of  finances  and  a  projected  series  of  readings. 
One  of  the  women  rose  and  came  down  through  the  scat- 
tered seats  toward  the  door.  She  looked  back  as  she 
came ;  something  in  her  half  averted  profile  seemed  famil- 
iar. She  stooped  and  caught  up  her  furs,  swung  them 
over  her  arm  and  came  on.  I  recognized  Elizabeth. 

She  reached  the  swinging  doors  without  seeing  me ;  no 
doubt  my  face  was  only  a  blur  behind  the  glass.  She 
swung  the  door  aside  and  stepped  through.  She  looked 
up.  Her  furs  slipped  to  the  floor  and  I  bent  to  recover 
them,  the  blood  drumming  in  my  temples.  When  I 
straightened  again  the  look  of  blank  surprise  was  gone. 
She  smiled. 

"Two  ghosts  in  one  day !"  she  said,  and  extended  a  slim 
hand.  I  mumbled  something,  I  imagine.  She  surveyed 
me,  her  color  returning.  "First  Dick  and  then  you !  Per- 
haps you're  going  to  speak,  too?" 

I  shook  my  head.     "I  came  to  get  Stowell." 

"You  don't  care  about  uplifting,"  she  interpreted. 

"Do  you?" 

"Yes— and  no,"  she  considered.  "We  all  have  to  look 
out  for  ourselves,  you  know.  But  it  helps — and  it's  fash- 
ionable now."  Then,  abruptly,  she  swung  to  questioning. 
"Your — The  Stores,  was  it?  I've  peeked  into  some  of 
your  places.  It's  been  a  success,  then?" 

"We're  making  money." 

"Of  course.     But  tell  me  about  it." 

I  told  her;  that  is,  I  spoke  whatever  fragments  con- 
cerning The  Stores  came  uppermost  in  my  mind.  It  was 


FLOOD  TIDE  183 

all  utterly  incomprehensible,  I  know.  Yet  Elizabeth  kept 
up  a  running  fire  of  comment — not  comment,  but  catch 
phrases.  "Really!"  "How  interesting!"  She  was  as- 
tonished, pleased.  "Fancy!"  she  commented  frequently. 
Quite  evidently  alertness  had  become  a  pose  with  her. 

"But  I  don't  place  you  here,"  I  said  finally. 

"We've  been  here  nearly  two  years.  You  didn't  know? 
The  row  Phil  had  with  his  uncle?  We  came  here  after 
that.  But  it's  hard  getting  started." 

I  looked  questions. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "Making  friends — prefer- 
ably people  with  money.  They  invest."  Her  tone  im- 
plied a  certain  cynicism.  "But  we  do  very  well." 

There  was  an  air  of  boasting,  of  paraded  success,  in 
her  tone.  She  broke  off  to  smile  Jmghtly  at  a  gray- 
haired,  stately  creature  who  rustled  by  us,  arms  filled  with 
papers,  bound  on  errands  of  great  import.  The  stately 
woman  thrawed  slightly  and  vanished  with  a  click  of  high 
heels. 

"Mrs.  Roberts,"  Elizabeth  volunteered.  "Her  husband 
is  Roberts  and  Company — wool,  you  know.  I  am  on  two 
committees  with  her." 

I  was  duly  impressed.  Still,  with  all  my  soul,  I  wanted 
to  get  away,  to  run.  Elizabeth  shifted  to  a  new  line, 
doubtless  suggested  by  Mrs.  Roberts.  She  became  delib- 
erately lyrical  about  Learoyd's  success.  I  listened  me- 
chanically. They  had  been  abroad,  I  remember ;  there  was 
mention  of  Pinehurst,  of  Tampa,  of  somebody's  shack  in 
the  Adirondacks.  I  think  now  that  she  was  deliberately 
cruel.  At  the  time  I  was  conscious  only  of  the  feeling 
that  this  was  a  bad  dream  and  I  would  awake  presently. 
This  present  Elizabeth  was  not  the  Elizabeth  I  had 
known.  She  was  nervous ;  her  gestures  spoke  of  living  at 
high  tension.  She  was  coarsened  in  grain,  on  the  sur- 
face, at  least.  A  subcurrent  of  cynicism  was  evident  in 
all  her  talk.  And  it  was  quite  evident  that  her  boasting 
was  only  boasting,  after  all. 


184  FLOOD  TIDE 

"But  I  was  born  to  be  discontented,"  I  remember  her 
saying.  She  must  have  realized  the  discrepancy  between 
her  success  and  her  discontent. 

Through  the  oval  glass  in  the  door  Stowell  appeared, 
at  the  further  end  of  the  auditorium.  I  welcomed  his  ap- 
pearance as  a  relief  from  an  intolerable  situation. 

"You  wanted  to  see  Stowell?"  I  asked.  She  followed 
my  gesture. 

"Why,  yes."  The  meeting  had  broken  up  and  the 
chairwoman  intercepted  Stowell.  He  smiled  and  fidgeted 
nervously  with  his  watch  chain.  Elizabeth  turned  and 
spoke  decidedly.  "No ;  not  now.  But  if  you'll  bring  him 
out  some  time — you  must.  Come  yourself,  at  least. 
Here,"  and  she  gave  me  her  card.  "You  will,  won't  you  ?" 

She  smiled  appealingly. 

"I'm  afraid " 

"I'll  not  let  Phil  talk  investments,"  she  said  quickly. 
"Please." 

"Perhaps." 

"That's  no  kind  of  a  promise." 

"I'll  try." 

"Do.    Good-by." 

She  vanished  as  Stowell  bumped  the  door  on  my  heels. 

"Pardon — oh,  it's  you!"  he  said.  "Come  on.  Some- 
body nail  you  for  a  charity  subscription?" 

"Something  in  that  line." 

•We  neared  Marks'  place  before  I  tore  up  the  card  that 
Elizabeth  had  given  me  and  dribbled  the  fragments  over 
the  side  of  the  car — unread. 

I  had  no  desire  to  see  Elizabeth  again.  I  regretted 
having  seen  her.  To  one  of  my  temperament,  disillusion 
is  a  physical  pain.  Elizabeth,  buried  in  memory,  had 
not  turned  to  aureate  earth.  She  was  artificial,  unreal, 
shallow. 

I  shook  off  the  last  fragments  of  her  card  and  broke 
in  on  Marks'  explanation  of  his  figures. 


FLOOD  TIDE  185 

"You'll  have  to  give  up  this  uplift  stunt  of  yours,  Sto- 
well,"  I  said  abruptly. 

"Is  that  so?    Why?" 

"I'm  thinking  of  going  away  for  a  while." 

"Vacation?     Go  ahead,"  he  advised  generously. 

Marks  turned  and  regarded  me,  swaying  to  and  fro 
with  the  lurching  of  the  car.  "That's  one  way,"  he  con- 
ceded, "but " 

His  approval  or  disapproval  meant  nothing  to  me.  I 
was  suddenly  tired  of  work,  tired  of  everything.  This 
meeting  of  Elizabeth  awoke  in  me  no  emotion  save  a  vague 
disgust  with  the  entire  business  of  life.  .  .  . 

My  "vacation,"  in  all,  lasted  three  months.  I  remem- 
ber it  now  as  a  blank  period  of  formless  unrest.  I  re- 
member Chicago  and  a  dreary  autumn  wind  off  the  lake. 
I  recall  a  succession  of  sleeping  cars  and  resultant  head- 
aches. There  was  a  week  spent  in  investigating  a  system 
of  chain  stores  in  St.  Louis  and  a  vast  accumulation  of 
notes  which  ultimately  went  into  the  river  as  the  train 
pulled  slowly  across.  I  wandered  about,  like  a  man  in  a 
stuffy,  ill-ventilated  room  on  a  rainy  day,  gazing  through 
blurred  panes  at  the  dripping  world. 

And  I'm  not  sure  whether  or  not  Elizabeth  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  this  dingy  discontent.  I  know  that  1 
was  glad,  after  all,  that  we  hadn't  married.  Glad,  and 
yet  dimly  sorry.  We  seemed  both  to  have  turned  out 
something  different  than  we  had  promised.  Perhaps  to- 
gether  

I  was  secretly  relieved  when  Marks  telegraphed  hys- 
terically for  me  to  return. 


I  came  back  to  find  the  existence  of  The  Stores  threat- 
ened. Pingree,  a  protege  of  mine,  had  copied  our  ideas, 
our  organization,  even  our  plans  for  further  expansion. 
He  had  secured  capital  and  started  with  four  stores,  with 


186  FLOOD  TIDE 

more  in  immediate  prospect.  Marks  was  frothily  denun- 
ciatory of  Pingree  and  his  forbears  to  the  fourth  gener- 
ation. He  raved  up  and  down  the  office,  going  off  into 
occasional  skyrocket  ascents  of  language.  Stowell 
watched  him,  faintly  amused  and  yet  apparently  not 
agreeing. 

Finally  I  understood  and  Marks  came  down  to  earth. 

"Well,"  he  said  briskly,  "what  are  we  going  to  do  about 
it?" 

"Stop  him,  if  we  can,"  I  said  briefly.  "What  do  you 
say,  Stowell?" 

"He  has  queer  ideas,  you  know,"  volunteered  Marks 
in  elaborate  courtesy.  "Brotherhood  of  man — Pingree's 
divine  right  to  do  as  he  pleases — that  sort  of  stuff." 

It  was  evident  that  Stowell  and  Marks  held  differing 
opinions  regarding  Pingree. 

"What  do  you  say?"  I  reiterated. 

Stowell  turned  from  the  window.  "Marks  seems  to 
have  stated  my  position,"  he  said  slowly.  "I  object — 
at  present.  You  can't  stop  Pingree  from  getting  a  start ; 
it's  too  late  for  that.  And  before  you  start  a  fight — well, 
I  advise  that  you  investigate." 

Marks  hesitated  a  moment,  started  to  voice  an  objec- 
tion, and  then  agreed. 

"But  take  my  word  for  it,"  he  stated,  "we've  got  to 
fight  and  that's  all  there  is  to  it.  We  can't  dodge  it." 


We  found  out  a  good  deal  during  the  next  week.  Marks 
and  I  had  an  interview  with  Pingree  which  ended  by  all 
three  of  us  losing  our  tempers.  What  irritated  me  was 
the  fact  that  Pingree  had  made  decided  improvements 
on  some  of  my  best  ideas.  Couple  that  with  the  man's 
air  of  superiority  and  coolness  and  you  see  that  we  had 
sufficient  cause  for  high  words.  I  have  a  suspicion  that 
Pingree  had  some  hidden  grudge  against  us.  Or  per- 


FLOOD  TIDE  187 

haps  his  idea  of  being  competitive  was  being  brutally  dis- 
courteous. Certainly  he  made  no  attempt  at  conciliation. 

"Then  you're  quite  determined  to  buck  us,  are  you?" 
asked  Marks  finally. 

Pingree  rose  and  stretched.  "If  you  demand  a  posi- 
tive answer — yes.  We're  going  to  wipe  you  right  off 
your  little  map  and  then  burn  the  map." 

Then  Marks  went  off  in  a  pyrotechnic  display  of  pro- 
fanity and  I  got  him  away  as  soon  as  possible.  Marks 
in  a  temper  was  scarcely  a  dignified  object. 

We  had  a  grand  pow-wow  over  it  that  afternoon,  made 
our  decision  and  started  our  fight — started  our  side  of  it, 
for  Pingree  had  already  begun.  Stowell  still  held  out  for 
conciliation. 

"I  know,"  he  said.  Marks  had  stated  that  we  must 
either  fight  or  be  content  with  half  success.  "That's 
your  view  of  it.  You  may  be  right." 

"I  am  right,"  affirmed  Marks.  "If  we  don't  bust  them, 
they'll  bust  us.  There's  no  middle  ground.  Either  speed 
up  and  get  ahead — or  eat  dust.  Wipe  us  off  the  map, 
will  he !  We  can  do  a  little  of  that  ourselves.  It'll  mean 
a  loss;  we'll  have  to  disregard  expense.  But  it's  going 
to  be  expensive,  either  way." 

He  swung  to  and  fro,  trying  to  face  both  of  us  at  once. 

"Now  or  later?"  he  asked.  "Let  them  get  a  start  and 
we'll  have  the  same  trouble  to  meet  over  and  over  again. 
We  can't  afford  to  let  them  get  started." 

"There's  a  third  way  that  you  haven't  mentioned,"  said 
Stowell. 

"What's  that?" 

"To  let  them  get  established  and  then  buy  them  out. 
You  say  that  their  plan  is  almost  the  same  as  ours — why 
not  let  them  do  the  work  for  us  and  then  take  their  pay  ? 
I — hang  it  all,  I'm  against  this  war-to-the-knife  stuff ;  I've 
never  liked  it  and  never  will.  It's  contrary  to  my  sense 
of  business  ethics;  I  believe  in  giving  the  other  fellow  a 
fair  chance.  It's  as  you  say,  I  suppose.  But  we've  got 


188  FLOOD  TIDE 

no  patent  on  our  ideas  and — well,  I  honestly  believe  that 
we'd  better  let  them  go."  He  was  genuinely  distressed 
at  the  prospect  of  conflict. 

"I  don't  like  it  any  more  than  you  do,"  replied  Marks. 
"It's  dirty,  for  one  thing,  and  for  another  it's  expensive 
— damned  expensive.  But  follow  your  idea  to  its  logical 
conclusion.  Yo,u'd  let  this  Pingree  get  established.  Well 
and  good.  What  then?  We'd  either  have  to  buy  him 
out — and  pay  seven  prices,  even  supposing  we  could  buy 
him  out — we  could  consolidate  with  him — which  would 
mean  a  radical  change  in  our  plans — or  we  could  give  up 
our  plans  entirely.  If  you  could  show  me  any  other  way 
out — but  there  isn't  any.  No.  It's  his  fight  and  we  can't 
dodge  it." 

"Don't  be  a  confounded  Copperhead,  Stowell,"  I  ob- 
jected. 

He  stared  for  a  moment  and  then  caught  the  allusion. 
"  'Let  the  erring  sisters  depart  in  peace'?"  he  inquired. 
"That  hardly  applies.  They're  not  erring  sisters." 

"It's  the  same  spirit,"  I  answered.  "Non-resistance — 
the  sacred  rights  of  others  and  the  rest  of  that  junk.  It's 
Chinese  philosophy." 

Marks  contributed  something  about  "bastard  children." 
But  he  rather  surprised  me  by  the  patience  with  which  he 
met  Stowell's  arguments ;  for  my  part  I  could  see  no  sense 
in  them.  Pingree  had  originated  nothing.  He  was  merely 
using  our  own  weapons  against  us ;  why  shouldn't  we 
fight?  Stowell  was  right  in  one  tiling;  business  warfare 
was  essentially  dirty  with  no  trace  of  anything  honorable 
about  it.  But  like  many  disagreeable  things,  it  was  neces- 
sary. I  could  see  no  other  course  open  to  us.  Neither 
could  Marks.  And  Stowell  finally  gave  in. 

"Well,  which  is  it?"  I  asked  impatiently.  "You're  talk- 
ing in  circles.  I'm  for  smashing  them,  myself." 

"Smash,"  voted  Marks. 

We  both  looked  at  Stowell.  "Fight,  then,"  he  said. 
"I'll  do  my  best." 


FLOOD  TIDE  189 


VI 

So  it  started.  It  was  a  bitter  war,  all  that  Marks  had 
prophesied;  a  war  with  the  traditional  features  of  raids, 
reprisals,  propaganda  and  the  inevitable  protests  and 
profits  of  neutrals.  Altogether  it  lasted  a  year  and  more. 
During  that  time  we  went  through  the  travail  of  reorgan- 
ization ;  we  fought  Pingree  and  fought  among  ourselves ; 
we  had  endless  trouble  with  Greenwood  and  Lyons;  we 
went  through  alternating  triumphs  and  defeats,  hesitated 
for  a  while  on  the  brink  of  failure,  and  finally  emerged 
stronger  than  before,  free  forever  from  the  bugbear  of 
competition.  It  left  us  all  changed.  Marks  throve  on 
the  fight  and  found  new  ambitions.  Stowell  did  his  share, 
as  he  had  promised,  but  did  it  without  enthusiasm.  The 
very  form  and  purpose  of  The  Stores  changed.  I  crowded 
five  years'  work  into  one.  And  I  had  once  gone  about 
Whitehaven  with  a  plan  for  the  elimination  of  competi- 
tion !  We  were  eliminating  competition,  but  not  exactly 
in  the  way  I  had  planned  then. 

We  speeded  up  in  every  department.  In  four  months 
our  advertising  expenses  quadrupled;  other  expenses  in- 
creased in  proportion.  We  drained  our  established  stores 
of  their  best  men,  abandoned  our  plans  for  slow  and  sure 
expansion  and  made  the  crushing  of  Pingree  our  one  ob- 
ject. At  first  we  were  content  to  follow  his  lead;  later  we 
anticipated  his  moves.  We  had  our  spy  system  as  well  as 
he.  For  a  while  Pingree  met  us,  forcing  the  fight,  in  fact. 
Any  lingering  compunctions  which  I  might  have  enter- 
tained about  the  justice  of  our  course  were  jettisoned 
when  he  cut  prices  below  cost. 

"Trying  to  bluff  us,  eh?"  grunted  Marks.  "We'll  see 
him  and  go  him  one  better." 

We  did.  For  a  time  the  two  campaigns — that  of  es- 
tablishing new  places  and  cutting  prices — went  on  side  by 
side.  Pingree  weakened  first  on  price  cutting;  we  went 
a  shade  below  him  and  rested  there. 


190  FLOOD  TIDE 

But  before  Pingree  showed  this  preliminary  sign  of  de- 
feat, Greenwood  and  Lyons  went  back  on  us — quit  cold. 
For  three  months  and  more  they  had  bothered  us,  prying 
about  singly  and  together  questioning,  objecting,  offer- 
ing futile  suggestions  and  gradually  progressing  from 
doubt  through  successive  stages  of  disapproval  to  final 
and  utter  panic.  We  were  spending  too  much  money ; 
they  hinted  darkly  that  the  whole  Middle  West  was  be- 
hind Allison,  Pingree's  backer;  they  demanded  compro- 
mise where  compromise  was  manifestly  impossible  and  out 
of  the  question.  They — "went  Jewish,"  as  the  Russians 
call  Hebraic  hysteria.  They  wasted  an  entire  week  of 
our  time  with  alternate  cajolings  and  blustering. 
Through  some  channel  they  learned  that  Stowell  was  not 
in  complete  sympathy  with  our  steam  roller  tactics ;  as  a 
last  resort  they  tried  to  swing  him  over — without  result. 
And  in  a  final  desperation  they  agreed  to  sell  out  their  in- 
terest if  we  could  find  a  purchaser. 

Marks  found  one.  He  did  more ;  still  keeping  the  con- 
trol in  the  hands  of  the  three  of  us  he  obtained  funds  to 
carry  on  the  fight  indefinitely.  I  think  that  it  was  a  short 
note  written  under  a  certain  letterhead  and  signed  with 
a  great  sprawling  signature  which  caused  Allison  to  draw 
in  his  horns.  That  note — and  I  am  convinced  that  it  was 
written  at  Marks'  suggestion — changed  the  complexion  of 
affairs.  I  saw  Pingree  a  week  after  that  and  pitied  him 
for  the  first  time. 

That  was  really  the  end,  perhaps  not  the  end  but  cer- 
tainly the  turning  point.  Greenwood  and  Lyons  tried 
to  hedge  on  their  agreement.  The  name  on  the  letter- 
head was  guarantee  that  their  appraisal  of  our  success 
was  false.  They  never  quite  forgave  Marks ;  I  think  that 
to  this  day  they  look  upon  our  entire  year  of  trouble  as 
a  scheme  to  force  them  out  of  The  Stores.  They  never 
forgot. 


FLOOD  TIDE  191 


vn 

This  business  warfare  affected  us  all  in  one  way  or  an- 
other, as  I  have  said,  but  its  effects  are  things  apart  from 
this  chapter.  I  shall  have  to  come  back  to  them  later. 
Now  that  I  am  upon  this  thread  of  our  development  from 
far  reaching  plans  to  a  no  less  expansive  reality  I  wish 
to  stay  on  it,  to  follow  it  to  the  end,  and  then  come  back 
to  what  is,  after  all,  the  main  thread  of  my  story. 

It  seems  but  a  step,  as  I  look  back  on  it,  from  our 
office  at  the  warehouse  to  our  final  quarters  on  lower 
Broadway.  In  reality  it  was  a  matter  of  years.  After 
our  recovery  from  the  Pingree  incident  we  filled  in  our 
territory  rapidly.  As  we  grew,  the  growth  of  the  purely 
local  section  of  the  warehouse  became  a  serious  incon- 
venience. 

We  had,  to  quote  Marks,  "no  more  privacy  than  a  push 
cart  man."  We  moved  down  town  again,  this  time  to 
offices  of  our  own. 

This  was  the  shell  we  never  outgrew,  the  final  stage  to 
which  all  the  rest  was  but  preliminary.  There  was  noth- 
ing small  about  our  projects  now.  We  worked  on  mat- 
ters which  we  had  realized  but  dimly  at  first,  things  which 
had  been  only  provisional  possibilities.  We  had  built 
up  from  the  strata  of  everyday  business  into  the  rarefied 
atmosphere  above.  We  received  the  final  accolade — we 
and  the  men  of  our  subordinate  companies  were  referred  to 
as  "The  Grocery  Crowd."  We  never  reached  the  sky- 
towering  heights  of  the  other  "crowds" — railroads  and 
steel  and  rubber  and  the  others ;  ours  was  one  of  the  minor 
pinnacles  which  pass  unnoticed  because  of  their  proximity 
to  these  greater  peaks. 

And  there  was  nothing  small  about  our  headquarters. 
In  our  new  offices  we  achieved  something  of  that  somber 
richness  which  should  accompany  the  working  out  of  great 
things. 

We  had  the  entire  tenth  floor  of  the  new  building — 


192  FLOOD  TIDE 

two  floors,  in  fact,  for  the  first  break  in  the  upward  sweep 
came  here  and  what  was  really  the  eleventh  floor  was  in- 
cluded in  our  office.  We  had  our  own  ideas  of  what  we 
wanted  and  these  two  floors  gave  us  the  chance  to  work 
them  out  in  the  great  central  office  which  Townsend,  the 
architect,  at  first  declared  impossible  and  afterward  re- 
ferred to  with  pride.  It  was  an  office  of  hushed  ecclesi- 
astical atmosphere,  of  indirectly-lit  vaults  overhead,  of 
solidity  and  spaced  rows  of  desks;  an  office  deeply  reso- 
nant with  the  muffled  hum  of  the  worshipers  at  the 
Shrine.  The  Shrine  itself — so  christened  by  Worthing- 
ton — was  a  duplication  of  the  old  wall  map,  a  vast  ex- 
panse of  buff  and  soft  blue  with  the  network  of  The 
Stores  picked  out  in  glowing  red  and  deeper  blue. 

It  comes  back  to  me,  as  a  detail  of  the  furnishing  of 
our  own  inner  offices,  that  Marks  developed  a  hobby  for 
collecting  figures  of  elephants ;  little  elephants  in  bronze 
and  ivory  stood  on  his  desk;  elephants  peered  from  the 
corners  in  all  sizes  and  attitudes,  trumpeting,  waving 
branches  and  standing  in  serene  immobility.  One  of  these 
larger  figures,  carved  from  a  great  block  of  ebony  and 
with  deep-set  twinkling  eyes  of  some  red  stone,  proved  the 
downfall  of  many  of  the  men  who  came  to  us  with  propo- 
sitions; the  head  and  tail  and  even  the  eyes  were  actu- 
ated by  some  hidden  mechanism  and  I  have  seen  many 
carefully  thought  out  schemes  break  down  and  show  their 
inner  weaknesses  under  the  subtle  and  distracting  influ- 
ence of  this  beast.  "Old  Genghis  Khan,"  as  Marks  called 
him,  did  us  good  service  many  times  with  his  rolling  little 
eyes  and  twitching  tail  and  nodding  head.  When  we 
adopted  a  seal  he  had  the  place  of  honor  on  it ;  he  was  the 
original  of  the  black  elephant  on  the  buff  and  blue  back- 
ground which  has  since  become  familiar  as  the  stamp  of 
our  products. 

This  office,  with  its  quiet  soberness  and  its  exotic  ele- 
phantine figures,  was  the  heart  of  everything  in  these  days. 
Into  it  flowed  the  revenue  of  all  our  subsidiary  branches ; 


FLOOD  TIDE  193 

we  dipped  out  what  we  pleased  and  turned  it  into  new 
channels.  It  was  the  center  of  two  webs ;  the  network  of 
The  Stores  and  this  other  web,  supplementary  but  of 
scarcely  less  importance,  which  we  were  weaving. 

In  time  the  weaving  of  this  supplementary  web  became 
our  main  interest.  At  first  the  management  of  The  Stores 
was  the  sole  business  carried  on  from  the  new  office, 
but  in  time  it  became  a  subordinate  interest,  although  we 
never  gave  it  up  entirely.  We  followed  out  steadily  our 
policy  of  training  up  men  to  do  our  work  and  passed  on 
ahead,  reaching  out,  grasping,  turning  over  the  details  to 
the  men  who  followed  us — and  then  reaching  out  for 
more. 

We  became  manufacturers,  as  well  as  wholesalers  and 
retailers.  We  pushed  our  own  products,  the  familiar 
Buff  and  Blue  brands  of  canned  and  cartoned  stuff.  Later 
we  incorporated  our  specialties  under  General  Canneries 
and  Corn  Products  and  in  a  measure  relaxed  control  of 
them.  Altogether,  in  the  last  days,  there  were  between 
twenty  and  thirty  of  these  minor  companies,  each  a  thriv- 
ing business  in  itself,  under  our  control.  Our  hold  on 
them  became  even  more  indirect  during  the  first  days  of 
the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  frenzy,  but  to  the  last  a  large 
proportion  of  their  profits  flowed  into  the  general 
offices.  .  .  . 

This  second  web  was  entirely  Marks'  work,  as  the  ini- 
tial conception  of  the  first  web  was  mine. 

There  is  one  point  which  becomes  clearer  to  me  as  I 
survey  these  greater  days  of  The  Stores.  I  see  Marks 
as  the  dominating  figure  in  The  Stores.  My  part — and 
Stowell's  too,  until  he  left  us — was  subordinate.  I  was 
a  burned  out  battery,  a  drag  on  the  wheels.  From  di- 
recting and  in  a  measure  controlling,  I  slipped  back  and 
became  a  cog  in  the  machinery.  I  still  evolved  ideas,  but 
they  came  mechanically.  And  they  were  failures.  I 
never  quite  got  hold  of  the  larger  aspects  of  Marks' 
schemes.  The  Brazilian  coffee  scheme  was  my  best  effort 


194  FLOOD  TIDE 

during-  this  time.  It  ended  in  abject  failure.  I  put 
through  the  San  Jacinto  irrigation  project  and  as  a  re- 
sult involved  The  Stores  in  endless  litigation.  After  these 
abortive  attempts  at  leadership  I  gave  it  up  and  followed 
Marks. 

I  must  have  changed  in  other  ways.  Perhaps  I  have 
never  been  noted  as  the  possessor  of  a  bright  and  smiling 
face,  but — I  remember  passing  a  knot  of  typists,  at  lunch 
hour.  One  of  them  held  forth  on  some  grievance. 

"Gloomy  Gus !"  she  said.  "On  the  level,  Gertie,  if  you 
stuck  a  pin  in  that  man  he'd  bleed  ink !" 

Some  one  nudged  her  and  she  looked  up  in  open 
mouthed  horror.  I  had  no  doubts  as  to  the  identity  of 
"Gloomy  Gus." 

But  I  am  not  going  into  these  later  days  of  The  Stores. 
That  is  Marks'  story  and  not  mine.  He  developed  amaz- 
ingly as  time  went  on ;  he  absorbed  Stowell's  practicality 
and  my  imaginative  quality,  made  them  his  own  and  sur- 
passed us  both.  He  became  self-sufficient. 

He  dominates  all  my  memories  of  these  later  days,  al- 
ways reaching  out  and  grasping,  always  building  and 
piling  up  and  adding,  and  always  growing  as  the  second 
web  grew  under  his  hands. 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 


So  far  this  has  been  a  story  of  growth,  interrupted  at 
times,  but  still  steadily  progressing  against  all  obstacles 
and  sometimes  against  all  sense.  I  have  traced  the  growth 
of  my  imagination  and  the  growth  of  The  Stores,  the  child 
of  that  imagination.  Now  another  element  enters,  an  ele- 
ment which  I  have  discovered  since  I  began  to  write. 

This  new  element  is  that  of  decay.  I  began  to  break 
away  from  The  Stores ;  not  so  much  a  breaking  away  as 
a  slow  and  gradual  loss  of  interest.  I  never  broke  away 
entirely.  It  was  a  loss  so  slow  and  gradual  that  even 
now  I  fail  to  see  it  clearly;  it  is  difficult  to  tell  exactly 
when  growth  ceased  and  decay  started.  I  have  been  set- 
ting down  all  sorts  of  inconsequential  things,  trying  to 
produce  order  from  them  and  determine  just  where  my 
grip  began  to  relax.  I  find  it  very  hard.  I  know  that 
Stowell  lost  interest  at  the  time  of  our  unfortunate  fight 
with  Pingree;  I  know  that  Marks  never  lost  interest.  I 
can  see  these  things  in  others  but  not  in  myself.  I  must 
have  grown  and  decayed  at  the  same  time,  as  a  tree  grows 
and  is  sound  to  all  outward  appearances  but  is  still  rotten 
at  heart. 

I  am  not  sure,  but  I  think  that  the  decay  started  with 
the  very  beginning  of  The  Stores.  Until  the  doors  of  our 
first  three  stores  opened  they  had  been  no  more  than  a 
mere  mental  conception;  as  they  assumed  the  aspect  of 
reality  my  attitude  toward  them  underwent  a  change. 
There  is  at  once  a  satisfaction  and  a  disappointment  in 
seeing  the  creations  of  our  imagination  take  on  substance. 
My  attitude  toward  The  Stores  changed  again  when  we 
'195  . 


196  FLOOD  TIDE 

moved  from  the  Trumbull  to  the  warehouse;  I  had  feared 
failure  before  that,  and  with  this  assurance  of  success  that 
fear  and  incentive  to  work  was  removed.  I  changed  for 
a  third  time  with  our  removal  to  lower  Broadway. 

One  thing  is  clear;  I  shall  have  to  go  back  to  pick  up 
this  thread  of  decay ;  I  have  carried  the  story  of  growth 
beyond  the  inception  of  my  loss  of  interest.  But  I  shall 
go  back  no  further  than  the  end  of  our  fight  with  Pin- 
gree.  Stowell  left  us  during  the  year  following  that,  and 
with  his  going  came  my  first  self-examination  and  dis- 
satisfaction. The  decay  was  present  before  that,  but  it 
was  hidden  so  deeply  that  I  failed  to  suspect  its  presence. 
That  was  its  first  appearance,  and  even  then  I  failed  to 
recognize  it  as  decay. 


It  started  pleasantly  enough;  that  is,  it  was  pleasant 
for  others.  We  all  dislike  to  be  laughed  at,  and  I  still 
blush  when  I  think  of  the  part  I  played  that  afternoon. 

It  began  in  Miss  Davenant's  office.  We  had  been  plan- 
ning some  new  economy — we  cut  expenses  enormously 
after  the  rout  of  Pingree — and  despite  my  efforts  I  found 
my  attention  wandering  from  the  straight  line  of  business. 
Finally  I  found  the  cause,  a  most  magnificent  ring  on 
Theresa's  hand,  a  ring  whose  stone  flashed  little  darts  of 
red  and  blue  fire  and  in  some  subtle  way  distracted  my 
attention  from  the  subject  at  hand. 

"That's  it,"  I  said  conclusively. 

"That's — what?"  she  asked,  surprised  at  this  sudden 
side  remark. 

"Your  ring,"  I  explained.  "Dazzled  me.  Would  you 
mind  turning  the  stone  inside?" 

She  stretched  her  hand  out  into  the  sunlight  which 
slanted  down  beside  her  desk  and  waved  it  to  and  fro 
slowly;  tiny  shafts  of  crimson  and  beryl  and  sapphire 
shimmered  and  danced  across  the  scattered  papers. 


FLOOD  TIDE  197 

"A  beauty,  isn't  it?"  she  observed  with  a  little  laugh 
in  her  voice. 

"Not  a  very  good  investment,"  I  observed  sagely.  "You 
never  get  back  what  you  pay  for  them.  Now  then " 

As  I  closed  the  door  behind  me,  she  laughed;  a  full 
throated  laugh  which  was  a  rarity  in  our  busy  atmos- 
phere. I  listened,  started  back,  and  then  thought  better 
of  it.  Probably  a  touch  of  hysteria,  I  thought;  she  had 
been  under  a  strain  lately  and  had  shown  it  in  an  un- 
usual absent-mindedness. 

I  dismissed  the  matter  from  my  mind,  but  it  kept  com- 
ing back.  It  was  most  unusual  for  Miss  Davenant  to 

make  any  display  of  jewelry;  perhaps I  saw  a  great 

light.  I  stretched  out  my  own  hands  and  tried  to  recall 
on  which  finger  the  ring  had  been;  left  hand,  surely,  and 
the  third  finger. 

"Poor  investment !"  I  said  to  myself.  "You  poor  idiot ! 
No  wonder  she  laughed." 

I  started  out  with  some  dim  notion  of  apologizing,  but 
Stowell  met  me  at  the  door  with  a  worried  look  and  some 
minor  difficulty  and  I  turned  back. 

"I  see,"  he  said  thoughtfully,  after  I  had  found  his 
trouble.  "Sorry  to  have  interrupted  you.  Go  ahead ;  I'll 
stay  here  and  get  it  down  while  it's  fresh  in  my  mind." 

Where  had  I  been  going?  Something — Miss  Davenant, 
I  remembered. 

"We're  going  to  lose  Theresa,  I'm  afraid,"  I  observed. 

"So?"     He  went  on  scribbling,  singularly  unmoved. 

"Got  an  engagement  ring;  just  noticed  it,"  I  continued. 

"Uh-huh.     Known  it  for  some  time." 

"It's  going  to  be  hard  to  replace  her,"  I  went  on  irri- 
tably. "That's  the  worst  of  having  a  woman  in  a  re- 
sponsible position.  Some  weak-chinned  counter-jumper 
always  interferes  and  takes  them  away." 

"You  know  the  man,  then?"  queried  Stowell. 

"No — but    these    capable   women    always    marry   that 


198  FLOOD  TIDE 

type,"  I  asserted  dogmatically.  "Protective  instinct,  I 
suppose. 

Stowell  wrote  on,  mumbling  to  himself.  Without  warn- 
ing he  exploded  in  a  sudden  fit  of  coughing;  he  grew  red 
behind  the  ears  and  bolted  out  without  bothering  to  shut 
my  door.  I  heard  Theresa's  office  door  open ;  through 
the  ground  glass  partition  I  saw  dim  shadows  and  heard 
the  two  of  them  talking.  They  laughed;  she  had  prob- 
ably told  him  of  my  absurd  mistake.  I  had  made  myself 
ridiculous  enough,  I  thought,  and  bent  over  my  work 
again. 

I  looked  up  again  to  see  them  standing  together  in  the 
doorway. 

"I  owe  you  an  apology "  I  began,  but  they  paid  no 

attention. 

"Are  we  alone?"  Theresa  asked,  looking  up  at  Dick. 

Stowell  looked  around,  shading  his  eyes  with  one  hand. 

"There's  Coffin,"  he  pointed  out. 

"Where?  Oh,  yes!"  and  she  deliberately  looked  through 
me.  "But  he's  totally  blind,  you  know.  Come." 

She  tilted  her  head  back,  Dick  bent  over  toward  her 
lips,  lower — lower 

"You — you —  -"  I  stammered  weakly,  and  they  jumped 
apart  in  exaggerated  surprise. 

"Why,  look!"  exclaimed  Theresa.  "His  eyes  are 
open!" 

"Open?"  laughed  Dick.  "You  could  hang  your  hat 
on  them!'* 

"You — you —    -"  I  said  again. 

They  went  off  into  a  shameless  burst  of  laughter,  point- 
ing at  me  and  rocking  to  and  fro  each  time  I  attempted 
to  speak. 

"Let's  see  if  Marks  is  blind  too,"  said  Dick  finally. 
They  went  off,  still  laughing  at  me  and  leaving  me  still 
speechless. 

They  were  married  soon  after  this,  a  quiet  wedding  in 
the  apartment  which  Theresa  shared  with  her  invalid 


FLOOD  TIDE  199 

mother;  a  ceremony  whose  main  incidents  seem  now  to 
be  the  wrangle  I  had  with  the  caterer  and  the  fact  that 
Dick  misplaced  his  shirt  studs  and  had  to  borrow  mine. 
I  borrowed  Worthington's,  and  he  in  turn  annexed  a  set 
which  were  the  pride  of  Skip's  heart.  The  cuff-links  in 
particular  were  magnificent,  one  solid  blaze  of  red  and 
green  glass,  and  Worthington  missed  the  best  parts  of  the 
ceremony  in  his  endeavors  to  keep  them  concealed. 

Marks  was  there,  for  once  obviously  ill  at  ease  and 
manifesting  a  desire  to  get  me  off  into  a  corner  and  dis- 
cuss the  details  of  the  Corn  Products  deal  which  we  were 
considering  at  that  time.  I  finally  shunted  him  off  on  a 
militantly  strong-minded  aunt  of  the  bride's,  a  severely 
dressed  lady  of  uncertain  years  and  very  positive  ideas 
on  the  subject  of  the  relations  between  employer  and 
employed.  She  cornered  Marks  behind  the  piano,  and 
from  time  to  time  I  caught  phrases  about  "our  move- 
ment" in  tones  which  indicated  that  all  other  movements 
were  of  dubious  and  inferior  character  indeed.  Marks 
gazed  at  me  gloomily  and  reproachfully  over  the  polished 
top  of  the  piano,  and  the  next  day  he  was  unnecessarily 
harsh  to  an  inoffensive  being  in  a  white  tie  and  square- 
toed  boots  who  invaded  our  office  on  behalf  of  some  up- 
lift stunt. 

Worthington  and  I  saw  them  off  from  the  pier  at  Ho- 
boken  on  the  Wilhelm  der  Grosse;  she  sailed  at  midnight, 
and  as  she  swung  slowly  out  from  the  circle  of  the  dock- 
lights,  Theresa's  voice  floated  down  to  us  from  the  blurred 
mass  along  the  rail,  high  above  us  in  the  dimness. 

"No  rings,  Mr.  Coffin,"  she  caUed.  "They're  a  bad 
investment." 

"What  did  she  mean?"  asked  Worthington  curiously, 
as  we  turned  away. 

"Damned  if  I  know,"  I  answered  grumpily,  and  refused 
to  respond  to  any  of  his  further  advances.  He  was  very 
noisy  and  bothersome  as  we  crossed  on  the  ferry,  gestic- 
ulating in  arcs  of  red  and  green  cuff  buttons  toward  the 


200  FLOOD  TIDE 

dim  lights  of  the  Kaiser  Wilhelm  and  asserting  enviously 
that  Stowell  was  a  lucky  dog.  He  was  to  be  married 
himself  that  fall,  but  a  honeymoon  in  Europe  was  beyond 
his  reach. 

I  agreed  with  Worthington  on  one  thing. 

"It's  going  to  be  lonesome  without  Stowell,"  he  said. 


in 

During  that  winter  my  father  died.  He  had  been  in 
poor  health  for  a  long  time,  although  no  hint  of  it  had 
crept  into  his  letters,  and  had  gradually  given  up  the 
management  of  his  store  to  Joe  Grigsby. 

My  memories  of  the  funeral  are  very  confused.  I  re- 
member Captain  Waldron,  a  bit  more  stooped  and  aged ; 
I  recall  the  unfamiliar  whisper  and  rustle  which  filled  the 
old  house;  clearest  of  all  comes  the  picture  of  the  proces- 
sion through  the  snow-strewn  streets  to  the  old  burying 
ground,  the  burying  ground  which  had  more  tombstones 
than  graves,  for  many  of  the  monuments  were  erected  to 
those  lost  at  sea. 

Last  of  all  I  remember  the  next  morning  at  the  store 
with  Captain  Waldron  and  Grigsby.  Joe  was  worried, 
and  yet  reluctant  to  speak  of  business  at  such  a  time. 
I  broached  the  subject  myself  and  made  arrangements 
for  him  to  continue  as  manager.  Some  sentimental  con- 
sideration prevented  me  from  selling  outright. 

"And  the  house,  Johnny?"  queried  Captain  Waldron 
from  behind  the  stove. 

"I  don't  know,  sir,"  I  said  slowly.  "What  would  you 
advise?" 

"Keep  it." 

"I  may  never  come  back  here  to  live." 

"Been  in  the  family  a  long  time,"  he  reminded  me. 

"Yes,  it  has." 

I  thought  a  moment. 

"I'll  leave  it  in  your  hands,  sir,"  I  concluded.     "Keep 


FLOOD  TIDE  201 

it  in  repair  and  send  me  the  bills.  Board  up  the  windows, 
if  you  wish.  Or  better  still,  rent  it  to  some  widow  or  old 
maid ;  there  must  be  some  of  them  about  town.  Get 
enough  out  of  it  to  pay  the  taxes  and  other  expenses. 
No  more.  I  don't  need  the  money  and  they  may.  Will 
you?" 

"Well  done,"  he  commented,  "I'll  see  to  it." 
He    thoughtfully    considered   the   rust   spotted    stove; 
then  nodded. 

"He'd  like  it  that  way,  I  know,"  he  said. 


Stowell's  honeymoon  lengthened  out  to  a  six  months' 
absence,  a  period  punctuated  by  infrequent  post  cards 
from  queer  corners  of  Europe  and  still  more  infrequent 
letters.  Finally  he  and  Theresa  returned  and  set  about 
the  furnishing  of  an  apartment  in  the  upper  eighties,, 
just  back  from  Riverside  Drive.  Dick  was  strangely  re- 
luctant to  take  up  the  thread  of  business  again ;  he  came 
in  once  or  twice,  criticized  our  work,  yawned  over  his 
desk  and  then  vanished  for  another  period.  I  objected. 
We  needed  him. 

"One  thing  at  a  time,"  he  protested.  "I'm  over  my 
ears  in  work  as  it  is.  Solemn  business,  this  starting  a 
home.  See  here,  what  I've  got  to  do  to-day." 

He  pulled  out  a  long  list  and  began  to  read ;  decorator, 
a  curio  dealer  on  Third  Avenue  to  be  seen  about  some 
andirons,  rugs,  meet  Theresa  for  lunch  at  12.30,  Customs 
House — "Fuss  over  some  Grand  Rapids  furniture,"  he 
commented — maid,  curtains,  con.  c.  b. 

"Now  what  the  devil  is  'con.  c.  b.'?"  he  worried. 

I  led  him  quietly  outside  and  closed  the  door. 

Finally  Marks  and  I  were  invited  to  inspect  the  finished 
work. 

"You  have  done  well,"  said  Marks,  after  dinner  that 


202  FLOOD  TIDE 

night.  "With  such  direction,  of  course,  failure  was  im- 
possible." 

He  bowed  gravely  to  Theresa  and  she  bobbed  him  a 
quaint  little  curtsy  in  return. 

"System  does  wonders,  doesn't  it?"   she  remarked. 

"And  now  I  suppose  you'll  be  coming  back  to  the  of- 
fice, Stowell,"  Marks  said  after  a  pause.  "We've  been  sav- 
ing part  of  this  matter  of  the  Canneries  for  you — and 
then  there's  the  new  office  to  be  considered." 

"I  know,"  agreed  Dick.  "Playtime's  over;  nothing  left 
but  the  cold  gray  respectability  of  married  life.  But  it's 
been  fun." 

"All  of  that,"  said  Theresa.  "You've  no  idea  the  things 
we've  seen!  Little  English  villages 

"Like  Whitehaven,  only  slower,"  commented  Dick. 

" — With     thatched     roofs     and    funny    chimney-pots 

" — Mud  floors,  most  likely." 

"He's  dreadfully  unromantic,"  complained  Theresa. 

"But  still,  it  will  seem  dull  at  the  office,  I  suppose,"  I 
ventured. 

There  was  a  little  silence. 

"The  office !"  said  Theresa,  with  a  little  sigh.  "You're 
quite  determined  to  talk  business,  I  see.  I  refuse  to  listen. 
I'm  only  a  poor,  weak  woman  and  I  don't  understand 
these  things." 

Despite  our  protests  she  marched  out. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Stowell,  gazing  after  her.  "It  will 
be  hard  to  settle  down  again,  after  being  away  so  long. 
Hard  work.  I  hate  to  think  of  it." 

He  sighed  contemplatively,  and  became  engrossed  in 
the  end  of  his  cigar. 

"So  I  don't  think  that  I'll  come  back,"  he  added  quietly. 

I  looked  at  Marks. 

"I  told  you,"  he  nodded. 

"But  why,  Dick?"  I  asked.  "You  aspire  to  be  one  of 
the  idle  rich?  or  is  it  some  new  line  of  business?" 


FLOOD  TIDE  203 

"The  second." 

"Something  new?" 

"Absolutely." 

"But  what?" 

"I  suppose  you'd  class  it  roughly  as  Uplifting  the  Pee- 
pul — welfare  work,"  he  answered,  "although  really " 

"You  mean  poking  around  in  tenements  and  blackmail- 
ing respectable  people  to  support  pet  charities?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Not  that — although  I  maintain  that  it's  all  right  in 
its  own  way,  mind  you.  I'm  not  interested  in  charities 
save  in  a  purely  academic  manner — which  is  a  polite  way 
of  saying  that  I  don't  care  a  damn.  I  shall  not  inter- 
fere with  Mrs.  Mulcahy  when  she  feeds  the  baby  Sky 
Blue  Milk  instead  of  Peptonized  Lacteal  Tablets.  Neither 
do  I  care  whether  Tony  Guardanolupo  buys  white  wine 
or  red  steak  with  his  princely  stipend." 

"That  narrows  it  down  somewhat,"  I  observed.  "You 
admit  that  you're  going  tilting  at  windmills  and  you've 
eliminated  one  class.  Suppose  you  point  out  the  specific 
object  of  your  wrath." 

"The  biggest  one  of  all,"  he  returned  cheerfully.  "But 
I'm  not  the  only  Quixote  in  the  field." 

"Allardyce,  Watson  and  Dalrymple,  to  name  some  of 
the  others,"  volunteered  Marks  from  the  depths  of  his 
chair.  "They've  touched  me  for  funds,"  he  added,  in 
response  to  Dick's  questioning  glance. 

Dick  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"They  got  them,"  Marks  admitted. 

"Good !"  commented  Dick.  "I'm  glad  that  you  approve 
of  it." 

"My  approval  is — purely  academic,"  said  Marks  dryly. 

"You  know  more  than  I  thought  you  did,  Marks." 

"Thanks,"  said  Marks  dryly.  "Others  have  told  me 
that." 

I  listened  sulkily,  without  the  least  idea  what  they  were 
talking  about. 


204  FLOOD  TIDE 

"It's  just  this,"  said  Dick,  taking  pity  on  my  igno- 
rance. "There  are  a  few  men  in  this  village  who  have  a 
suspicion  that  public  business  isn't  conducted  exactly  as 
it  should  be.  I'm  one  of  them;  besides  myself  there's 
Allardyce  of  Columbia,  Dalrymple,  the  railroad  man — I 
think  you've  heard  of  him — Ellms,  you  neglected  to  men- 
tion him,  Marks " 

"Don't  know  him,"  grunted  Marks. 

"About  a  dozen  of  us  in  all.  I'm  only  a  minor  mem- 
ber; it's  my  opinion  that  they  came  to  me  after  they'd 
tried  every  one  else.  But  I'm  with  them.  We're  of  the 
firm  and  unalterable  opinion  that  there's  no  reason  under 
the  sun  why  public  business  should  be  conducted  less  effi- 
ciently and  less  honestly  than  private  business.  In  sup- 
port of  this  contention  we  intend  to  see  whether  or  not  we 
can  put  this  city  on  a  firm  and  sane  governmental  basis. 
I  won't  say  that  we  will — but  we'll  try.  That  is  our  wind- 
mill, the  windmill  of  municipal  waste.  There's  only  one 
larger  one — the  problem  of  waste  in  national  government 
— and  that's  too  large  for  us.  Later — perhaps.  We'll 
have  to  find  out  how  big  this  city  problem  is,  first." 

"Business  administration,"  I  commented.  "Red  fire — 
statistics — cart-tail  oratory  on  the  East  Side  with  an 
obligate  of  dead  cats — and  after  election  a  statement  that 
'we  will  renew  the  fight  next  year.'  And  by  next  year 
you'll  have  forgotten  about  it." 

Dick  laughed  and  turned  to  Marks.  "See  where  your 
money  is  going,"  he  said.  "Do  you  want  it  back?" 

"Not  yet,"  answered  Marks.     "Go  on." 

"You  have  the  wrong  idea,  Coffin,"  continued  Dick. 
"We  shall  run  no  candidate  for  mayor  nor  for  council- 
man nor  for  fence  viewer.  This  is  an  affair  of  government, 
not  politics.  Two  entirely  distinct  matters.  Don't  you 
comprehend  that  government  is  a  matter  of  ideas,  not  of 
men?  We  have  nothing  against  any  party  or  any  man; 
our  objection  is  to  the  fact  that  the  administration  of 


FLOOD  TIDE  205 

public  affairs  is  still  in  the  Dark  Ages.  You  can't  deny 
it.  Duplication  of  work,  departments  which  overlap  and 
interfere,  waste,  incompetence,  things  going  undone  be- 
cause no  one  knows  how  to  do  them — you'll  find  the  city 
rotten  with  all  these.  That's  what  we're  gunning  for, 
the  system  and  not  the  man.  You  think  our  idea  is  to 
get  into  City  Hall;  you're  wrong.  We  want  to  help  the 
men  who  are  already  there.  And  we  can  do  that  best  by 
substituting  or  trying  to  substitute  business  methods 
for  archaic  survivals  of  the  day  when  Broadway  was  lined 
with  shade  trees  and  the  Bowery  was  respectable.  That's 
all." 

"And  your  method?"  asked  Marks  from  the  shadows. 

"That's  undecided  as  yet,"  admitted  Dick,  "but  roughly 
I  should  say  that  there  will  be  four  steps.  First,  to  get 
a  general  view  of  the  problem.  Second,  to  get  inside  and 
get  information.  Third,  to  formulate  and  recommend 
changes,  and  last,  to  see  that  our  recommendations  go 
through  and  are  tried  out.  That  will  be  the  start ;  later 
all  four  steps  will  go  on  at  once.  Twenty  years  ago  even 
the  first  would  have  been  impossible;  to-day — well,  we 
have  hopes  of  being  heard." 

"Hopes,"  emphasized  Marks. 

"I  have  my  own  fears,"  acknowledged  Dick.  "But  that's 
still  in  the  future.  The  whole  thing  simmers  down  to 
just  this;  we  have  done  things  big  and  now  we  must  do 
things  well.  In  The  Stores  we've  done  both,  because  we 
started  from  the  very  bottom;  in  government  we've  had 
growth  without  order.  We  have  no  remedy  which  is  to 
solve  all  our  difficulties;  we  merely  want  to  refine  exist- 
ing material.  'Welfare  Work' — yes;  but  of  a  pretty 
high  order  I  think." 

"Your  general  plan " 

"Is  just  this,"  interrupted  Dick.  "How  much  do  these 
cost  you  at  the  office?" 

He  held  up  a  bundle  of  common  pencils. 


206  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Seven  cents,  I  think,"  answered  Marks  doubtfully. 

"I  paid  ten  for  these,"  commented  Dick,  "at  a  station- 
ery store." 

"Well?" 

"And  they  cost  the  city  eighteen." 

Marks  turned  the  bundle  over  in  his  fingers. 

"I  see,"  he  said  thoughtfully. 

"And  you?" 

"I've  heard  much  the  same  thing  in  Park  Row  during 
the  lunch  hour,"  I  admitted.  "But  now — it  seems  more 
convincing.  It  will  take  a  long  time,  Dick." 

"I  know  it." 

"And  how  much  do  you  know  about  it?" 

Theresa  came  into  the  room  again;  her  protested  hor- 
ror of  business  had  been  only  a  pretext. 

"Only  what  we  could  learn  in  six  months,"  he  an- 
swered. 

"A  nice  honeymoon  I  had,"  she  said  indignantly. 
"Dragging  around  through  municipal  workshops  and 
prisons  and  dock-yards  and  talking  with  fat  and  unin- 
teresting officials." 

"Instead  of  looking  at  scenery  and  the  moon  and — 
ouch !" 

"No   tale-telling,"  she  warned. 

"But  we  can't  spare  you  now,"  I  objected. 

"I  think  you  can.     How  about  it,  Marks?" 

"We'll  have  to  stumble  along  as  best  we  can,"  answered 
Marks.  "You  seem  quite  determined.  Although  if  you 
ever  need  a  job " 

Dick  laughed.  "If  I  ever  go  broke  I'm  going  to  start 
a  pencil  factory,  believe  me.  There's  money  in  it." 

They  seemed  to  take  it  all  quite  cheerfully. 

"Cheer  up,"  said  Dick,  "this  isn't  the  end  of  the  world, 
you  know." 

I  knew;  but  he  had  started  me  thinking,  and  my 
thoughts  were  not  pleasant  ones. 


FLOOD  TIDE  207 


I  shall  remember  that  walk  down  town  as  long  as  I  live. 
I  declined  Marks'  offer  of  a  lift  in  his  car  and  struck  out 
alone.  I  wanted  to  think. 

I  remember  turning  toward  Riverside  Drive  first,  be- 
cause Marks  went  the  other  way.  For  a  while  I  gazed  out 
over  the  river,  across  to  the  black  mass  of  the  Palisades, 
tormented  by  a  thousand  fruitless  questions.  I  recall  two 
cruisers  at  anchor  upstream,  two  dim  shadows  against  the 
dull  shimmer  of  the  stream,  picked  out  here  and  there  with 
yellow  lines  of  dotted  light.  In  the  yards  below  me  a 
switching  engine  crept  about,  coughing  apologetically 
but  insistently,  in  search  of  some  car  which  had  fallen 
into  bad  company.  I  searched  my  mind  for  answers  to 
the  questions  which  perplexed  me.  I  failed  to  find  them, 
and  in  sheer  restlessness  turned  away  from  the  river  and 
started  south. 

Some  sort  of  an  affair  was  going  on  in  one  of  the 
residences  opposite;  awning  out  to  the  curb,  a  hum  of 
music  from  within,  a  string  of  motors  down  a  side  street, 
all  the  usual  external  evidences  that  some  one  was  pass- 
ing through  a  social  crisis.  Dick  and  I  had  wandered 
up  here  one  Sunday  during  the  early  days  of  The  Stores 
and  amused  ourselves  by  picking  out  the  places  we  would 
buy  some  day.  A  few  more  years  at  the  present  rate  and 
even  this  would  be  within  my  reach.  Not  that  I  wanted 
it  or  ever  had  wanted  it,  but  I  could  if  I  wished. 

I  found  no  satisfaction  in  the  thought.  I  found  myself 
in  the  position  of  a  man  who  has  spent  his  life  in  hewing 
and  carving  a  statue  and  then  finds  that  he  can  neither 
sell  it,  eat  it,  nor  put  it  to  any  conceivable  use. 

The  joy  of  creation?  A  poor  substitute  for  other 
things,  and  a  source  of  satisfaction  which  diminished  as 
the  work  went  on.  I  had  enough  to  eat,  enough  to  wear, 
a  roof  over  my  head — and  the  joy  of  creation.  The  poor- 
est laborer  had  as  much,  and  more.  Then  why  go  on 


208  FLOOD  TIDE 

creating?  The  pleasure  of  transmuting  ideas  into  reali- 
ties had  left  me;  what  incentive  was  left?  Not  money; 
I  had  never  found  pleasure  in  mere  possession.  Then 
why  go  on?  Why?  For  the  first  time  in  years  I  put 
that  question  to  myself;  it  recurred  in  my  mind  like  a 
refrain  as  I  went  along. 

I  crossed  over,  struck  across  Amsterdam  and  Columbus 
Avenues,  and  bore  south  along  the  Park.  To  the  left, 
now  hidden  behind  the  rough  knolls  and  now  revealing 
themselves  in  flashes  between  the  trees,  I  remember  the 
glitter  and  spin  of  hurrying  lights  on  Fifth  Avenue;  be- 
hind me  there  hung  a  shadow,  a  shadow  in  a  greasy  hat 
and  broken  shoes,  a  shadow  with  a  furtive  air  and  a  pat- 
ter of  misfortune. 

"Go  to  hell!"  I  growled  over  my  shoulder. 

It  hung  back  and  hesitated.  Under  a  sudden  impulse 
I  turned  and  beckoned. 

"Here,"  I  ordered,  and  emptied  my  change  pocket  into 
the  battered  hat;  part  of  it  trickled  through  and  the 
wreck  grunted  and  wheezed  after  the  scattered  coins.  I 
found  a  bill  wadded  in  the  corner  of  one  pocket  and 
flicked  it  down  toward  the  groping  hands. 

"Now,  damn  you,  you've  got  to  walk,"  I  thought. 

I  was  childishly  angry  with  myself;  I  had  a  blind  and 
unreasoning  impulse  to  hurt  my  body,  to  make  myself 
suffer. 

I  glanced  back ;  the  battered  hat  had  vanished  into  the 
shadows  whence  it  came.  We  were  both  of  one  stamp,  I 
thought;  both  members  of  the  Itinerant  Brotherhood. 
All  my  life  I  had  been  a  tramp,  an  intellectual  tramp, 
forever  seeking  new  things,  exhausting  their  possibilities, 
and  passing  on.  There  had  been  a  satisfaction  in  that, 
at  one  time;  but  now  only  the  habit  remained.  I  still 
wove  my  dreams  but  there  was  no  delight  in  the  smooth- 
ness of  the  product;  the  intricate  pattern  and  the  sheen 
of  mixed  colors  held  no  more  beauty  for  me.  And  to  go 
on  weaving — endlessly — Why? 


FLOOD  TIDE  209 

I  left  Columbus  Circle  behind  me  and  turned  into 
Broadway;  I  elbowed  my  way  through  a  crowd  craning 
their  necks  at  a  great,  lumbering  car  drawn  alongside 
the  curb.  I  thought  of  Marks,  who  had  early  grown  wise 
in  horse-power  and  speed.  Power.  That  was  his  aim 
and  with  that  he  was  satisfied.  It  was  a  part  of  his  na- 
ture, this  ever-narrowing  acquisition  of  money  and  power. 
But — was  he  narrow?  He  had  known  of  StowelPs  plans, 
while  I  had  not.  He  had  other  interests  beside  business ; 
so  had  Stowell.  Had  I? 

I  thought  I  had.  The  new  office,  our  extension,  this 
deal  of  the  Canneries,  all  our  plans  of  future  conquests 
— I  stopped  there. 

Lump  them  all  under  one  head — business — and  what 
had  I  outside? 

Nothing. 

I  had  fallen  behind  the  others;  Marks,  Stowell,  even 
Worthington  had  outdistanced  me.  They  had  other  inter- 
ests in  life;  I  had  nothing  but  work.  A  moment  before 
I  had  thought  contemptuously  of  Marks  and  his  single- 
minded  lust  for  power;  now  I  thought  contemptuously 
of  myself.  I  lacked  even  that  object. 

Times  Square,  with  its  blaze  of  lights,  the  crush  of  the- 
ater goers,  and  the  glittering  double  vista  down  Seventh 
Avenue  and  Broadway.  "Longacre  Square,"  old  Jenkins 
had  called  it,  and  had  given  me  a  long  and  wandering 
account  of  it  in  the  late  seventies.  I  had  been  bored, 
and  had  yawned  in  his  face.  I  wondered  now  if  he  had 
noticed  it.  Probably  he  had,  but  he  was  always  pathet- 
ically glad  of  the  chance  to  talk  to  some  one.  Would  I 
be  like  that,  twenty  years  from  now?  No  interests  but 
business — and  old  memories? 

After  Herald  Square  my  memories  begin  to  blur.  I 
was  tired,  utterly  and  absolutely  leg  weary.  I  was  soft 
in  body  and  soul  and  took  a  grim  pleasure  in  torturing 
both.  I  must  have  started  down  Sixth  Avenue  and  then 
swung  over  into  Seventh,  for  I  recall  being  annoyed 


210  FLOOD  TIDE 

through  my  fatigue  at  the  rumble  of  trains  overhead  and 
then  the  cessation  of  that  annoyance.  And  still  the 
question  why,  in  God's  name,  why?  It  kept  beating  away 
in  the  back  of  my  head  and  I  still  found  no  answer. 

"Hello,  kid." 

That  and  a  whiff  of  pungent  perfume  swirled  back  to 
me  over  the  shoulder  of  a  passing  prostitute.  I  kept 
count  of  them  as  I  went  along;  there  were  seven  of  these 
invitations,  seven  kinds  of  perfume,  seven  different  ac- 
cents. These  invitations  had  never  troubled  me  before, 
although  they  were  common  enough.  I  found  myself 
hesitating;  then  I  remembered  that  I  had  left  my  money 
with  the  battered  hat.  I  went  on.  I  realized  that  that 
way  was  not  a  solution,  but  the  purchase  of  temporary 
forgetfulness. 

I  got  home,  finally;  I  remember  finding  myself  in  a 
deserted  maze  of  streets  and  stopping  to  listen  for  the 
distant  rumble  of  the  Elevated. 

Out  of  my  fatigue  there  came  a  curious  clarity  of  mind. 
I  must  find  some  way  out  of  this  narrow  way  of  living. 
I  had  become  single-minded.  I  had  stuck  in  one  track 
too  long.  Why?  Because  I  lacked  the  energy  to  get  out 
of  the  rut.  With  all  my  looking  ahead  I  had  never  con- 
sidered my  personal  future;  my  only  thoughts  had  been 
for  the  future  of  The  Stores.  I  reviewed  the  past  year 
and  remembered  day  after  day  when  I  had  found  work  im- 
possible, whole  weeks  during  which  I  had  gone  stale.  I 
found  the  reason  now. 

And  the  solution?  To  get  out;  to  find  some  other  in- 
terest save  the  unsatisfactory  one  of  building  for  the 
sake  of  building. 

Worthington  came  in  soon  after  I  arrived.  He  was 
to  be  married  the  week  following;  perhaps  this  question- 
ing of  mine  was  due  in  part  to  the  realization  that  one 
by  one  my  friends  were  dropping  out  of  my  life. 

"What  does  a  man  do  when  he  finds  himself  with  only 
one  interest  in  life?"  I  asked  him  as  he  prepared  for  bed. 


FLOOD  TIDE  211 

"Marries  her,"  he   answered  readily. 

"But  seriously?" 

"Oh,  any  number  of  things — collect  china,  go  crazy 
over  fishing  or  golf,  buy  a  farm  and  raise  hens,  carve  the 
Lord's  prayer  on  the  head  of  a  pin — make  a  fool  of  him- 
self one  way  or  another.  What's  the  matter — beginning 
to  feel  the  collar?" 


From  that  night  dates  my  loss  of  interest  in  The  Stores. 
It  was  a  deliberate  loss  of  interest;  I  kept  on  at  the  old 
pace  for  a  time,  but  I  did  it  in  the  full  knowledge  that 
this  work  was  no  longer  the  chief  end  of  existence.  Sto- 
well,  I  think,  sensed  my  loss  of  interest,  for  he  tried  to 
interest  me  in  his  work,  urging  me  to  give  him  at  least 
part  of  my  time.  He  failed.  I  was  not  interested  in 
governmental  reform.  The  constructive  part  of  it  was 
good,  I  knew,  but  it  was  work  in  line  with  my  own  work 
at  The  Stores.  I  wanted,  above  all,  to  get  away  from 
that. 

But  for  a  time  I  worked  harder  than  before.  That  was 
the  winter  of  the  panic — 1907.  We  were  just  recovering 
from  our  anti-Pingree  campaign,  completely  recovered,  in 
fact,  but  with  our  retrenchment  policies  still  in  force. 
That  alone  saved  us ;  had  we  been  caught  a  year  before  or 
a  year  later  we  must  surely  have  been  driven  ashore. 
As  it  was,  we  reefed  sail  a  bit  and  carried  through.  We 
even  found  chances  to  expand.  Through  some  obscure 
deal  Marks  got  control  of  Crawford  and  Ewing,  a  small 
wholesale  house  up  town.  We  needed  another  warehouse 
in  that  section,  and  Marks  snapped  at  the  opportunity. 

This  was  during  the  worst  of  the  storm.  I  remember 
Marks  coming  into  my  office — we  were  still  at  the  ware- 
house— inclined  to  be  exultant  and  still  somewhat  doubt- 
ful about  my  reception  of  the  news.  He  found  me  un- 
accountably unresponsive,  I  have  no  doubt. 


212  FLOOD  TIDE 

The  headline  "Broker  Suicide?"  in  the  early  evening 
edition  had  caught  my  eye.  Why  I  noticed  it  I  can't 
say;  such  headlines  were  common  enough  then.  Under 
the  headline  I  caught  the  name  Learoyd — "Philip  Lea- 
royd,  34,  of  Cardigan  and  Learoyd  .  .  .  suspicious  cir- 
cumstances .  .  .  heart  failure."  And  below  that  the 
line: 

"The  deceased  leaves  a  wife  who  has  been  notified." 

That  night  I  went  home  with  Marks,  out  to  his  place 
in  the  Connecticut  hills. 

"Just  a  little  holiday,"  he  had  urged.  "Guess  we've 
earned  it." 

We  swung  down  town  first  to  have  a  glance  at  the  new 
building  which  was  to  be  our  future  home,  craned  our 
necks  upward  at  the  dusky  web  of  red  and  black  girders, 
gaunt  against  the  sky,  and  then  headed  north  up  Fifth 
Avenue.  We  crossed  the  bridge,  threaded  our  way 
through  the  Bronx  and  then  straightened  out  for  the  open 
country.  The  city  fell  away  behind  us,  darkness  came 
on  and  two  wavering  twin  lances  of  light  sprang  out  be- 
fore us,  charging  and  challenging  the  phantoms  of  dark- 
ness. We  went  on,  through  silent  fields  and  a  dwindling 
necklace  of  towns  and  villages,  following  the  looping  of 
the  gray  road  over  the  hills — and  all  to  a  streaming  ac- 
companiment of  talk  from  Marks.  He  insisted  on  point- 
ing out  the  mistakes  of  Crawford. 

He  annoyed  me — immensely. 

" — leaves  a  wife "     No  children,  evidently. 

I  mentally  corrected  the  reporter's  phraseology.  "A 
widow." 

I  wondered 

vn 

All  that  winter  I  looked  about  for  a  way  out  of  my 
rut,  tried  various  ways,  and  found  them  unsatisfactory. 
And  then,  one  afternoon  in  early  spring,  a  man  from 


FLOOD  TIDE  213 

Spain  tapped  me  on  the  shoulder  and  turned  my  feet  into 
the  path  I  sought.  I  have  never  seen  him,  but  I  have 
seen  his  work.  He  was  Sorolla. 

How  long  I  sat  before  that  great  picture  of  his  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  I  have  no  idea — hours  it  must  have 
been,  for  it  was  early  afternoon  when  I  entered  and  dusk 
when  I  came  down  the  steps.  How  I  came  to  be  there  also 
escapes  me;  perhaps  in  my  beating  back  through  the 
past  I  had  raised  some  faint  and  shadowy  memory  of 
Luigi  and  the  old  museum  in  Copley  Square.  I  only  know 
that  I  came  there  faintly  restless,  still  on  my  quest  for 
the  way  out,  and  went  away  with  the  way  found.  I  had 
no  doubts  of  that. 

I  appreciate  now  the  truth  of  that  old,  old  excuse 
for  faulty  description  and  interpretation,  the  statement 
that,  after  all,  words  are  but  poor  and  colorless  affairs. 
It  is  by  no  means  a  novel  excuse  and  I  make  it  with  a 
great  deal  of  hesitation.  I  have  tried  before  this  to  de- 
scribe that  canvas  and  failed.  Sorolla  has  caught  some- 
thing and  fixed  it  on  canvas ;  I  cannot  transmute  it  into 
type.  As  well  bombard  the  stars  with  adjectives;  they 
still  fail  to  come  nearer  earth. 

There  is  sunlight  on  that  sheet  of  woven  cloth,  caught 
and  fixed  there  forever;  the  clean,  sharp  afternoon  sun 
on  the  backs  of  the  lurching,  patient  oxen,  on  the  belly  of 
the  sail,  on  the  half-turned,  stubby  chin  of  the  man  who 
leans  and  strains  against  the  weight  of  the  chain;  such 
sunlight  as  you  get  at  Whitehaven  on  rare  fall  days. 
And,  beyond  that,  the  clean,  free  stretch  of  the  open 
sea.  That  was  what  held  me;  I  was  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  best  and  cleanest  memories  of  my  boyhood.  An- 
other sea-picture  would  have  left  me  unmoved;  the  surge 
and  swing  of  the  open  sea  beyond  sight  of  land  would  have 
left  me  apathetic  and  untouched.  This  was  something 
I  knew. 

This,  I  realized  suddenly,  is  what  you  want. 

I  found  myself  reading  things  into  the  canvas  as  I  sat 


214  FLOOD  TIDE 

there;  I  imagined  the  beach,  strewn  with  long  strands  of 
kelp,  with  the  sea  welling  up  in  the  prints  of  the  oxens' 
feet;  behind  that  there  must  be  cliffs,  cliffs  of  amber  and 
yellow  with  deep  blue  shadows  in  the  clefts.  And  in  the 
break,  where  the  stream  wrangles  and  frets  its  way  down 
between  the  rocks,  are  nets  drying  in  the  sun  and  white 
walled  cabins  with  rocks  on  the  roofs  against  the  winter 
storms.  Perhaps  there  was  even  a  pile  of  lobster  pots. 

It  was  all  so  wonderfully  clear  to  me  now ;  this,  and  this 
alone  was  what  I  wanted;  the  sea,  the  good,  green,  sunlit 
mother  of  all  things.  It  was  in  my  blood,  and  I  had  ig- 
nored it  too  long.  I  would  go  back. 

It  was  raining  when  I  came  down  the  long  steps,  a  light 
drizzle  that  smoothed  the  pavement  to  a  dusky  and  shin- 
ing mirror.  I  turned  off  through  the  Park  and  cut  across 
toward  the  subway.  I  rode  down  to  the  Battery  that 
night.  The  rain  came  steadily  here,  a  heavy  spindrift 
from  the  lower  bay  and  from  beyond  that — the  open  sea. 
With  it  came  the  sharp  tang  of  the  great  salt  reaches ; 
like  Stowell's  jungle  scent,  it  gets  into  your  blood  and 
sooner  or  later  draws  you  back  to  forgotten  things. 

I  stood  facing  the  driving  mist;  from  the  left  hand 
a  long  double  row  of  lights  crept  out,  gathered  speed,  be- 
came foreshortened,  and  faded  to  a  dim  blur  of  yellow  in 
the  darkness.  The  Staten  Island  ferry,  I  knew;  and  yet 
for  a  moment  I  experienced  a  revival  of  my  old  childish 
dreams  of  romance.  I  used  to  watch  the  ships  sail  out 
of  Whitehaven  and  wonder  how  long  it  would  be  before 
I  followed  them. 

Now  I  knew  that  I  would  follow  soon. 

I  gravely  gestured  in  farewell  to  these  adventurers 
on  the  high  seas,  and  then,  smiling  at  my  own  foolishness, 
turned  homeward. 


BOOK  THE  THIRD 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 


ONE  of  the  discoveries  which  we  all  make  as  we  look 
back  over  our  lives  is  that  they  fall  into  regular  periods. 
Certain  minor  events  stand  out  and  grow  as  they  recede 
in  the  distance;  from  the  distance  we  look  back  and  see 
that  what  we  passed  as  a  minor  pinnacle  was  really  the 
culminating  peak  of  a  range,  dividing  one  country  from 
another.  It  is  so  in  my  case.  I  passed  one  divide  when 
I  went  to  Hatherly's ;  I  see  now  that  I  passed  another 
with  my  discovery  of  Sorolla. 

But  for  a  time  after  passing  this  second  divide  I  wan- 
dered among  a  strange  jumble  of  minor  ranges  and  val- 
leys. There  was  no  direct  transition  from  one  sphere  to 
another,  as  there  was  from  college  to  Hatherly's.  Events 
overlap  and  interweave;  I  seem  to  have  left  the  old  life 
and  still  not  yet  fully  entered  upon  the  new.  Some  of  the 
events  of  the  time  immediately  following  this  preliminary 
breaking  away  I  have  already  told;  many  of  the  greater 
parts  of  our  business  expansion  belong  to  this  interval 
between  periods — how  we  spread  out  and  added  to  the  sec- 
ond web  and  grew  ever  greater. 

In  the  sense  of  time  this  third  section  really  begins 
with  the  summer  of  that  year.  I  bought  the  Ethelreda — 
J.  Everhard  Lewis  found  her  for  me  at  Evan's  yards  over 
the  river — renamed  her  the  Shadow  II  in  memory  of  the 
old  Shadow  and  deliberately  started  to  break  away  from 
The  Stores  and  everything  which  had  been  my  life  for 
the  past  ten  years.  I  found  Kavenaugh  at  Evan's  yards, 
too,  a  silent  little  Irishman  with  a  soft  brogue  which  was 
almost  Sicilian  in  its  liquid  vowels  and  swift  rushes  from 
217 


218  FLOOD  TIDE 

vowel  to  vowel.  During  that  summer  and  indeed  until  we 
built  the  Shadow  III  Kavenaugh  and  I  shared  the  slim 
forty  feet  of  the  Shadow  II  between  us.  He  was  cook, 
engineer  and  nautical  dry-nurse;  I  came  second  in  impor- 
tance as  owner  and  deck  hand.  Kavenaugh  was  a  good 
pal;  I  foresee  that  his  ruddy  cheeked,  taciturn  little  fig- 
ure will  run  through  this  third  book  as  he  does  through 
all  my  best  memories  of  this  time.  He  was  with  Cad- 
berry  and  myself  on  our  wild-goose  chase;  after  that  he 
brought  the  Shadow  III  down  from  Bath  and  lingered 
about  till  the  end — always  in  the  background  but  always 
there. 

So  I  started  my  search  for  the  Golden  Fleece  of  Con- 
tent, a  timid  Jason  who  found  increasing  satisfaction  in 
loafing  up  and  down  the  coast  during  the  summers  and 
ever  diminishing  pleasure  in  planning  and  building  great 
things  during  the  winters.  At  first  I  found  excuses  for 
myself;  I  was  tired,  gone  stale;  my  mind  was  exhausted 
by  many  harvests  and  needed  a  rest  to  recover  its  fertil- 
ity. It  never  did  recover,  I  may  as  well  admit.  I  became 
an  absentee,  a  silent  partner,  a  dependent  upon  Marks — 
whatever  you  wish  to  call  me. 

Somewhere  I  had  passed  another  shadowy  divide.  I 
lost  ambition,  deliberately  threw  it  away.  This  third 
section  of  my  story  deals  with  petty  ambitions^  drifting 
and  vagrant  aims.  From  a  futurist  I  became  a  hand-to- 
mouth  dweller  in  the  present. 

At  the  start  I  stole  away  from  business  whenever  I 
could,  but  later  I  became  more  brazen.  I  came  back  when 
I  could,  got  my  work  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  possible 
and  fled.  It  was  a  slow  subservience  of  one  interest  to 
another.  I  met  a  vast  number  of  pleasant  people,  joined 
clubs,  acquired  a  quasi-nautical  vocabulary  and  developed 
a  decided  distaste  for  work.  I  could  see  no  sense  in  work- 
ing for  the  sake  of  acquiring  more  money  and  power  in 
order  to  work  harder;  that  was  Marks'  way,  not  mine. 
I  considered  The  Stores  a  completed  whole;  Marks  saw 


FLOOD  TIDE  219 

it  as  a  base  on  which  to  construct  further  structures. 
Municipal  meddling  claimed  Stowell  entirely  and  he 
dropped  out,  selling  his  fourth  interest.  Every  fall  I  came 
back  to  the  offices  with  greater  reluctance.  I  had  no  in- 
centive in  life  save  self-indulgence,  and  that  rarely  leads 
to  creative  work. 

This  was  one  side  of  my  life.  As  my  interest  in  this 
aimless  and  distasteful  work  waned,  so  my  love  for  the 
other  phase  of  my  existence  grew.  There  were  no  disil- 
lusionments  when  I  came  back  to  the  sea ;  I  found  some- 
thing finer  than  I  had  imagined. 

During  those  summers  Kavenaugh  and  I  became  famil- 
iar figures  along  the  coast ;  from  Monomoy  south  to  Cape 
Henry  there  was  scarcely  a  bay  or  inlet  into  which  the 
Shadow  had  not  poked  her  long  gray  bow.  We  spent 
days  and  weeks  in  out-of-the-way  places.  Kavenaugh 
yarned  with  the  natives ;  I  merely  vegetated.  Later  I 
revived  my  long  slumbering  interest  in  painting,  simply 
sketching  at  first  and  then  starting  numberless  canvases 
and  finishing  some  of  them.  .  .  .  I'm  no  judge  of  that.  I've 
turned  out  stuff  since  that  satisfies  others,  but  I've  yet  to 
satisfy  myself.  My  marines  are  fair;  no  more.  It's 
not  that  I  started  too  late  in  life,  but  that  I  miss  some 
elusive  quality  about  the  sea,  the  same  distant  call  that 
old  Caspar,  far  back  in  Whitehaven  days,  felt  but  failed 
to  reduce  to  expression.  Sometimes  I've  come  within 
hailing  distance  of  it,  but  it  still  eludes  me  and  probably 
always  will.  Once  I  nearly  touched  it.  ... 

Usually  we  went  alone,  just  Kavenaugh  and  I,  drifting 
as  the  spirit  moved  us.  We  loafed  gorgeously;  once  in 
a  while  Worthington  came  across  country  to  some  somno- 
lent little  port  and  took  the  heavier  work  of  loafing  off 
our  hands.  He  was  more  or  less  of  a  bore  with  his  quo- 
tations and  colossal  ineptitude  for  labor,  but  I  found  it 
good  to  have  some  one  beside  Kavenaugh  to  talk  to  occa- 
sionally. 

I  remember  many  things  of  these  three  years  and  they 


220  FLOOD  TIDE 

are  all  pleasant  memories.  I  remember  long  hours  of 
drowsing  in  the  sun,  sprawled  lazily  content  on  the  for- 
ward deck,  sounds  of  Kavenaugh  hammering  something 
below;  I  remember  the  sweeping  northeasters  which  held 
us  storm  bound  for  days  in  remote  places ;  and  too,  I 
recall  the  long  summer  nights  under  the  stars,  with  Kave- 
naugh hunched  over  a  yellow-back  thriller  in  the  cabin 
below — I  read  them  myself  when  he  had  thumbed  and 
spelled  them  over — and  the  dim  velvety  hush  as  I  consid- 
ered many  things  dreamily  and  worried  over  never  a  one 
of  them.  Sometimes  Kavenaugh  would  be  moved  to  an 
unwonted  fit  of  garrulity  and  for  hours  would  conduct 
a  broken  monologue  about  things  he  had  seen  and  heard. 
I  remember  sunrises  far  at  sea  and  in  harbor,  the  faint 
blue  lines  of  distant  shores  half  seen  and  half  hidden  in 
the  slow  rise  of  the  thin  morning  mists;  forgotten  frag- 
ments of  verse  came  back  to  me,  de  Lamartine  and  Gau- 
tier  and  some  of  the  English  poets — "far-folded  mists 
and  gleaming  halls  of  morn"  is  one  which  sticks  in  my 
memory.  Perhaps  Worthington  quoted  this.  I  have  al- 
ways thought  that  he  memorized  verse  during  the  winters 
and  then  reeled  it  off  with  a  fine  air  of  nonchalance  for 
my  benefit.  I  remember  one  fragment  which  he  quoted: 

"With  only  the  shadows  to  tett  the  time, 
And  the  swing  of  the  sea  to  swell  the  rhyme 
To  the  beat  of  the  bell-buoys'  mellow  chime " 

He  trailed  off  into  silence  and  lazily  swayed  to  and 
fro  as  we  swung  along. 

"More  Swinburne?"  I  questioned. 

"My  own,"  he  admitted  with  becoming  modesty. 

"Can't  help  it"  he  added  in  answer  to  my  grunt.  "It's 
my  relaxation,  just  as  yours  is  lying  around  in  filthy  duck 
pants  and  a  three  days'  beard." 

I  twitched  the  wheel  ever  so  slightly,  the  Shadow 
swooped  her  nose  into  an  oncoming  wave,  and  a  long, 


FLOOD  TIDE  221 

thin,  diamond-hung  arm  reached  up  and  smote  Worthing- 
ton  between  the  shoulder  blades.  He  shivered  and  splut- 
tered: 

" the  turquoise  waves 

Spun  spots  of  silver  on  the  deck, 
And  still  they  sailed." 

This  was  from  "Songs  of  the  Southland"  and  he  re- 
garded me  dubiously  as  I  flung  his  own  verse  at  him. 
Then  he  crawled  down  into  the  safe  shelter  of  the  cock 
pit  and  shifted  the  talk  to  life  insurance  rates  and  dry 
shirts. 

Once — it  was  the  last  of  these  three  years — Kavenaugh 
and  I  started  south  in  March.  We  took  the  inside  route 
as  far  as  we  could,  across  cold  and  cheerless  New  Jersey 
in  a  perpetual  drizzle  of  mist,  and  thence  south  by  canal, 
Chesapeake  Bay  and  the  sounds  to  beyond  Hatteras.  We 
made  a  run  of  it  from  there  and  by  fools'  luck  arrived 
at  the  Bahamas  a  day  ahead  of  a  gale  from  the  southeast. 
That  year  we  loitered  slowly  northward,  and  not  until 
the  hills  about  Buzzards  Bay  had  changed  from  green 
to  gold  under  the  transmutors  wand  did  we  begin  to  think 
of  laying  the  Shadow  II  up  for  the  winter. 

This  was  the  last  and  greatest  voyage  of  the  Shadow 
II;  it  whetted  my  taste  for  this  sea-gypsying  and  that 
winter  I  built  the  Shadow  III. 


Marks  grew  amazingly  in  ambition  during  these  first 
years  after  the  panic  of  1907.  From  a  timid  and  dis- 
couraged failure,  as  I  had  found  him  at  Brown  Brothers, 
he  became  an  ambitious  and  confident  success.  A  latent 
visionary  element  became  evident  in  him;  with  the  suc- 
cessful passage  of  limitations  he  became  contemptuous  of 
obstacles,  overlooked  them,  saw  through  and  beyond  them 
to  limitless  fields  of  expansion.  What  dreams  he  dreamed 


222  FLOOD  TIDE 

in  secret  I  have  no  means  of  knowing.  But  I  do  know 
that  every  queer  fish  that  came  to  our  nets  inspired  him 
to  great  imaginings.  And  we  had  everything  offered  us, 
from  ostrich  farms  to  perpetual  motion  solutions. 

I  was  at  once  a  help  and  an  irritation  to  Marks.  A 
help,  because  I  clipped  his  wings,  made  myself  the  bal- 
ance wheel  of  his  wild  one-sided  imagination.  An  irrita- 
tion, because  I  refused  to  take  a  serious  interest  in  his 
vaguely  magnificent  plans  for  the  future  of  The  Stores. 
At  first  he  had  taken  my  comings  and  goings  with  an  air 
of  toleration ;  I  would  soon  tire  of  that,  he  thought,  and 
then  matters  would  resume  their  old  routine.  He  found 
a  certain  satisfaction  in  trying  his  own  hand  at  plan- 
ning, I  imagine;  my  absences  really  provided  a  vacation 
for  him  also.  He  assumed  an  I-told-you-so  air  when  I 
sold  the  Shadow  II,  an  air  which  vanished  abruptly  when 
I  planned  the  Shadow  III.  Further  madness !  During 
the  winter  he  exhausted  all  forms  of  appeal,  trying  to  per- 
suade me  to  return  and  make  The  Stores  again  my  sole 
interest  in  life. 

He  discovered  that  it  irritated  me  to  have  my  absences 
referred  to  as  "going  fishing."  By  insinuation  he  classed 
me  with  the  man  who  rows  a  dory  seven  miles  for  three 
cunners,  two  dogfish  and  a  sunburnt  neck.  I  dislike  fish- 
ing and  always  have;  yet  Marks  persisted  in  assuming 
that  this  was  my  diversion.  He  accumulated  a  vast  store 
of  fishing  stories  and  dragged  them  into  his  conversa- 
tion whenever  possible. 

There  was  no  actual  break  between  us.  Marks  must 
have  appreciated  that  my  romantic  type  of  mind  had 
seized  on  something  and  was  bound  to  extract  the  last 
drop  of  possible  enjoyment  from  it  before  abandoning 
it.  I,  for  my  part,  realized  that  Marks'  efforts  at  per- 
suasion had  their  origin  in  his  single-minded  interest  in 
our  creation.  We  failed  to  differ  seriously  only  because 
I  refused  to  argue  my  side  of  the  question.  I  had  no  argu- 
ments to  make  save  my  own  inclination. 


FLOOD  TIDE  223 

This  fencing  went  on  for  two  years  and  more,  with 
the  advantage  resting  with  neither  of  us.  With  the  start 
of  the  second  year  of  the  Shadow  III  I  became  vaguely 
eloquent  regarding  voyages  which  I  contemplated ;  Fayal, 
perhaps,  and  then  the  Mediterranean  ports,  Monaco, 
Barcelona,  all  the  names  which  had  once  appealed  to  me. 
Marks  became  more  specific  in  his  allusions  to  "going  fish- 
ing," an  accentuation  rather  than  a  change  in  our  rela- 
tionship. 

We  came  to  an  agreement,  finally,  out  at  Marks'  place. 
I  know  now  that  he  must  have  brought  me  out  there  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  thrashing  the  matter  out,  although 
ostensibly  I  was  brought  out  to  view  a  new  wing  which  he 
added  to  the  main  structure.  He  was  forever  building 
additions  of  one  sort  or  another;  the  final  result  re- 
sembled nothing  so  much  as  a  sanitarium.  We  inspected 
the  wing  and  then  sat  on  the  porch,  looking  out  over  the 
valley  in  the  soft  June  night.  Mrs.  Marks  sat  with  us 
for  a  while,  her  pleasant,  flowing,  unpunctuated  voice 
filling  the  silences  in  our  talk.  Finally  she  left  us. 

I  imagine  that  an  unusually  tempting  array  of  possibil- 
ities had  been  paraded  before  us  that  day,  for  I  remember 
Marks  being  querulously  discontented  as  I  pointed  out 
weak  places  in  schemes  which  he  considered  worth  trying. 

"Well,"  he  concluded,  "perhaps  it's  a  good  thing  we 
can't  run  wild,  grabbing  everything  in  sight.  That'd  be 
easy,  just  taking  things  and  making  them  over.  We've 
got  something  bigger  than  that." 

"Yes?"  I  encouraged. 

"N'York  isn't  the  only  city,"  he  said  with  a  queer  touch 
of  hesitation  in  his  voice.  "There's  something  to  think 
about,  Coffin." 

I  came  out  of  my  day-dream  with  a  jerk.    "You  mean?" 

"Other  cities — with  the  same  possibilities,"  he  added 
with  an  expansive  wave  of  the  remnant  of  his  cigar.  I  see 
now  that  he  must  have  been  sounding  me,  but  at  the  time 
I  thought  it  merely  the  result  of  some  passing  fancy. 


224  .       FLOOD  TIDE 

"Other  cities,  of  course  .  .  .  And  with  possibilities  in 
our  line,  too,"  I  agreed.  "But  that's  for  some  one  else. 
We've  trouble  in  handling  what  we've  bitten  off  here." 

He  muttered  something  about  limitations. 

"We're  human,  if  that's  what  you  mean,"  I  concluded. 

He  seemed  on  the  point  of  explaining,  hesitated,  and 
then  gave  it  up" .  I  was  disappointed  at  his  easy  surrender ; 
his  remark  about  "other  cities"  troubled  me  vaguely.  I 
tried  to  draw  him  out,  but  he  refused  to  commit  himself. 
When  he  spoke  again  he  had  shifted  to  another  subject 
entirely. 

"You  don't  mean  that,"  he  said  abruptly,  as  though  he 
had  finally  convinced  himself. 

"Mean  what?" 

"About  these  long  trips  of  yours.  Norway  or  Austra- 
lia or  wherever  it  was.  That  would  mean  months  of  ab- 
sence. You  can't,  you  know." 

"I  don't  know."     I  had  my  own  unadmitted  doubts. 

"You  got  to  stop  somewhere,"  he  persisted.  "What's 
going  to  become  of  The  Stores?" 

"They  seem  to  get  along  all  right,"  I  said  shortly. 

"Seem  to,  but  they  don't.  And  you  know  it.  ...  It 
isn't  right,"  he  said  aggrievedly. 

"I'm  sick  of  The  Stores,  Marks,"  I  said  after  a  time. 
"I'll  sell  out  if  you  wish." 

"No,"  he  said  quickly.  "I've  thought  of  that.  I  don't 
want  you  to.  Even  if  you  only  come  in  one  day  a  month 
it  will  be  better  than  nothing  at  all.  Don't  think  of 
that." 

"What  then?"  I  asked,  secretly  relieved  that  he  had 
seen  the  matter  in  this  light. 

"We've  got  to  settle  it  somehow,"  he  went  on.  "You 
can't  convince  me  and  I  can't  convince  you.  We  got  to 
compromise." 

"But  how?" 

"I've  thought  it  out,"  he  stated.  "Stay  away  as  long 
as  you  want,  but  stay  within  call.  There  are  times  when 


FLOOD  TIDE  225 

I  need  you  and  need  you  bad.  Suppose  you're  out  of  call ; 
where  am  I?  You  stay  around  within  reach  and  I'll  give 
up  badgering  you.  Is  it  a  bargain?" 

I  gave  up  my  plans  reluctantly,  but  I  gave  them  up. 


I  stayed,  outwardly  reluctant  but  inwardly  content. 
Beginning  with  the  first  summer  of  the  Shadow  III  my 
life  centered  more  and  more  about  the  Arrowrock  colony. 
Lewis,  wise  in  the  commission  business  and  wiser  still  in 
affairs  nautical,  had  secured  me  a  membership  in  the  club 
with  my  purchase  of  the  Shadow  II.  In  the  three  sum- 
mers during  which  Kavenaugh  and  I  had  loafed  up  and 
down  the  coast  I  had  been  only  an  infrequent  visitor  at 
the  Arrowrock,  coming  and  going,  dropping  in  whenever 
my  wandering  inclination  led  the  Shadow  II  in  that  direc- 
tion. We  appeared  at  intervals,  loitered  about  for  a  few 
days,  revived  acquaintance,  and  then  passed  on. 

I  payed  dues,  the  Shadow  was  listed  on  the  club  regis- 
ter, I  received  notices  of  elections  and  assessments.  But 
I  was  still  an  outlander,  an  odd  fish,  a  lesser  comet  of 
uncalculated  orbit,  touching  their  system  at  intervals 
and  then  vanishing.  At  one  time  I  thought  rather  seri- 
ously of  becoming  more  than  an  absentee  member  and 
acquired  twenty  acres  of  rocks  and  scrub  growth  across 
the  bay,  with  a  vague  intention  of  building  there.  Then 
some  other  interest  claimed  my  attention  and  I  forgot 
this  plan  in  some  newer  and  more  attractive  one. 

The  building  of  the  Shadow  III  changed  all  this.  The 
Shadow  II  had  been  unnoticed,  one  of  a  class;  she  came 
and  went  and  left  no  unfilled  blank.  The  Shadow  III 
advanced  my  rating;  through  the  incident  of  possession 
I  became  a  man  of  importance,  my  appearance  was  an 
event  and  my  disappearance  a  cause  of  regret.  The 
Shadow  HI  added  luster  to  the  fame  of  the  Arrowrock, 
whereas  the  Shadow  II  had  shone  in  the  reflected  luster 


226  FLOOD  TIDE 

of  others.  I  was  urged  to  stay,  consulted  where  before 
I  had  been  informed  of  results,  even  elected  to  a  minor 
committee.  In  stating  this  change  I  intend  no  reflection 
on  the  motives  of  the  Arrowrock  crowd.  We  are  all 
judged  by  the  tonnage  of  our  visible  possessions. 

I  liked  the  people  at  the  Arrowrock.  They  were  a  new 
type  to  me,  a  class  which  before  this  I  had  seen  only 
from  the  outside.  At  Whitehaven  we  had  called  them  "dog- 
fish," and  had  followed  Captain  Waldron's  opinion  that 
taking  them  by  and  large  they  were  barnacles  on  the  ship 
of  progress.  Now  that  I  became  a  dogfish  myself  I  looked 
on  them  with  kindlier  eyes.  I  contrasted  them  with  other 
classes  that  I  knew  and  found  the  others  suffering  by  the 
contrast.  They  were  perhaps  less  keen  than  the  young 
Jews  whom  I  knew  through  Marks,  but  I  had  found  these 
upper  class  Hebrews  usually  keen  on  one  angle  only  and 
blunted  on  all  others.  The  Arrowrock  people  lacked  the 
earnestness  of  Stowell  and  Theresa's  class  of  pseudo- 
professional  uplifters  of  one  sort  and  another;  they  were 
more  tolerant,  less  positive,  children  were  children  and 
not  raw  material  for  the  Montessori  method;  life  was  no 
less  real  but  not  quite  so  much  concerned  with  the  wel- 
fare of  Mrs.  Tony  Guardanolupos  and  the  installment  of 
a  budget  system  in  the  police  and  sewer  departments. 
And,  lastly  and  unlike  the  Worthingtons,  they  evinced 
only  a  polite  interest  in  the  Irish  players  and  considered 
Cubism  and  Vorticism  amusing  rather  than  evidences  of 
progress. 

As  I  think  of  the  Arrowrock,  of  the  broad  gray  roof 
and  the  broader  gallery  above  the  float,  of  the  bustle  and 
clatter  of  conversation  and  the  eternal  passing  and  re- 
passing  of  tanned  and  healthy  faces,  I  sigh  for  the  first 
time  since  I  began  this  book.  All  that  is  past  now  and 
gone.  I  look  back  on  it  and  get  an  effect  of  post-prandial 
enjoyment;  I  had  eaten  to  repletion  of  the  strong  meat 
of  business,  had  my  dessert  in  the  three  cream  puff  years 
of  the  Shadow  II  and  now  sat  contentedly  surveying  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  227 

more  enjoyable  side  of  life.  I  never  joined  any  one  clique 
at  the  Arrowrock,  perhaps  because  I  am  one  of  those 
enviable  mortals  who  say  little  and  are  good  listeners, 
perhaps  because  I  found  it  more  enjoyable  to  look  on.  I 
was  essentially  a  looker-on.  I  look  on  now,  in  memory, 
as  familiar  faces  pass  by,  happy  ghosts  in  the  clear  after- 
noon sunshine.  Or  perhaps  I  am  the  ghost,  cut  off  from 
their  life,  still  lingering  about  the  pleasant  places  of  other 
days. 

Certain  faces  stand  out  from  the  crowd.  I  see  Cad- 
berry,  our  immigrant  problem;  an  Oxford  man  with  a 
passion  for  archeological  research.  He  plans  a  new 
series  of  lectures  at  New  Haven  this  year,  I  understand; 
certain  theories  of  his  have  changed  since  the  winter  of 
1913.  As  I  see  him  he  wears  the  ragged  blue  blazer  with 
the  rose  embroidered  on  the  breast  pocket  which  he  re- 
serves for  gala  occasions ;  with  the  beard  which  he  grew 
in  the  Yucatan  wilderness  and  decided  was  becoming  he 
resembles  the  less  Mephistophelian  portraits  of  Mr.  Ber- 
nard Shaw. 

Mrs.  Fairleigh  passes,  half  content  now,  for  one  of  her 
Botticellian  daughters  is  at  last  married  off  and  she  has 
only  one  cause  for  worry  left — another  daughter.  Worry 
keeps  one  thin,  I  observe  cynically,  and  I  think  that  she 
overhears,  for  she  turns  and  makes  a  face  at  me.  She  is 
a  good  and  kindly  soul,  even  though  she  insists  against 
all  reason  that  she  had  a  hand  in  my  marriage. 

Peter  Annersley  passes,  grayer  haired  and  somehow 
more  youthful  than  ever.  He  and  J.  Everhard  Lewis 
still  debate  their  old  question  of  centerboard  vs.  keel; 
with  a  pair  of  churchwarden  pipes,  two  tankards  and 
ruffles  at  throat  and  wrist,  the  pair  of  them  might  pose 
for  two  fox  hunting  English  squires  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. Annersley  has  aged  of  late,  for  I  hear  him  quoting 
Larry,  an  unheard  of  thing. 

"Industrial  Janizaries,  my  son  calls  them,"  he  says, 


228  FLOOD  TIDE 

and  I  am  left  in  doubt  whether  the  Janizaries  he  refers  to 
are  munition  workers  or  some  newly  listed  stock. 

Other  faces  pass  in  review,  a  long  procession  of  them; 
new  faces  and  old  faces ;  people  whom  I  knew  slightly 
and  those  who  considered  the  Shadow  as  much  their  pos- 
session as  mine.  I  have  mentioned  only  those  who  have 
a  place  in  this  story ;  there  are  a  host  of  others  who  were 
equally  important  at  the  time.  There  is  Ham  Porgis, 
meditating  some  new  asininity ;  Robinson,  talking  war 
bonds  instead  of  Cobalt;  Blake,  his  once  placid  face 
showing  signs  of  worry.  I  sold  him  the  Shadow  at  his 
own  ridiculous  figure  and  have  no  sympathy  for  him. 

Blake  makes  an  incongruous  figure  solely  by  reason  of 
his  worried  air.  The  one  quality  that  the  Arrowrock 
people  had  in  common,  the  one  thing  that  stamped  them 
as  a  class,  was  the  absence  of  worry.  They  were  frankly 
well  pleased  with  themselves,  almost  belligerently  unafraid 
of  the  future,  and,  above  all,  with  no  exaggerated  notion 
of  the  importance  of  their  own  activities.  They  enjoyed 
life  in  a  singularly  unfurtive  and  courageous  manner  and 
made  no  pretense  of  doing  anything  else. 

The  puckery,  Puritanic,  New  England  conscience  must 
be  very  dilute  in  me;  despite  the  fact  that  this  life  was 
manifestedly  wasteful  and  unproductive,  I  liked  it.  I 
clung  to  it  despite  Marks'  unveiled  sarcasm  and  Stowell's 
blundering  attempts  to  interest  me  in  municipal  efficiency. 
I  found  more  pleasure  in  wasting  than  in  producing. 

rv 

In  this  survey  of  the  Arrowrock  crowd  I  have  left  out 
two  figures,  left  them  out  intentionally.  Figures  stood 
out,  I  said ;  the  Annersley  twins,  Lawrence  and  Lauretta, 
stood  out  so  far  that  they  seemed  outside.  I  have  dim 
memories  of  them  as  part  of  the  crowd  during  the  years 
of  the  Shadow  II;  I  remember  Larry  as  a  gangling  youth 


FLOOD  TIDE  229 

with  a  silky  voice — changeable  silk — and  Lauretta  I  fail 
to  remember  at  all. 

Then  young  Larry  wrecked  the  Dart — one  of  the  first 
of  the  wave-gatherers,  more  of  an  experiment  than  any- 
thing else,  built  on  the  graceful  lines  of  a  bread  tin  and 
productive  chiefly  of  noise  and  speed.  He  took  her  out  in 
a  stiff  breeze  and  lost  control,  with  the  result  that  the 
Dart  went  clam  digging  and  Kav  and  I  put  out  in  the 
tender  to  rescue  Larry. 

We  met  him  swimming  in  as  calmly  as  though  such  ac- 
cidents were  every-day  affairs.  We  pulled  him  aboard 
and  started  back;  as  we  went  along  he  and  Kavenaugh 
argued  over  the  cause  of  the  accident.  He  took  his  ship- 
wreck with  remarkable  coolness,  holding  a  cigarette  gin- 
gerly between  wet  fingers  and  being  careful  not  to  drip 
on  the  cushions. 

"I  told  you,"  argued  Kavenaugh.  "You  shifted  the  en- 
gine too  far  aft;  she  got  up  on  her  tail  and  of  course 
she  steered — what  the  deuce !" 

He  broke  off  and  stared  at  Larry,  who  slid  down  limply 
on  the  floor  of  the  cockpit,  his  head  lying  back  inert  on 
the  seat. 

"My  sister,"  said  Larry,  out  of  the  corner  of  his  mouth. 
"She'll  give  me  the  devil  because  she's  missed  the  fun. 
I'm  all  right ;  this  is  for  her  benefit." 

He  gestured  ahead  to  the  float ;  a  girl  in  a  striped  blazer 
and  white  skirt  ran  down  the  long  run  leading  from  the 
clubhouse,  a  small  and  excited  terrier  revolving  about  her 
like  a  satellite.  She  crossed  the  float  and  waited  for  us 
as  Kavenaugh  shut  off  the  power  and  we  circled  up  along- 
side ;  the  terrier  went  quite  mad  with  excitement  and  tore 
excitedly  up  and  down  the  float  as  we  drew  in.  Larry's 
sister  stood  waiting. 

"No  use  hiding,"  she  called  angrily.  "I  saw  you  from 
the  house.  You  wait!  You  sneaked  off  and  .  .  .  Oh!" 

She  caught  sight  of  Larry's  quiet  figure  and,  without 
hesitation,  leaped  the  intervening  space  of  water.  The 


230  FLOOD  TIDE 

boat  rocked,  and  Larry  lolled  to  and  fro  horribly.  He 
opened  one  eye  as  she  kneeled  beside  him,  then  closed  it 
and  opened  the  other.  He  groaned  realistically. 

"I'm  all  right,  Laury,"  he  said.  "Hit  my  head,  I  guess." 

"And  I  was  going  to  scold  you!"  she  exclaimed  peni- 
tently. 

"I  deserve  it>"  he  assented.  "But  you  might  have  been 
hurt." 

"Huh!  I  can  swim  as  well  as  you  can,"  she  asserted. 
"You're  not  really  hurt,  then?" 

"I  feel  better  already,"  said  Larry  in  relief.  "But  if 
it  hadn't  been  for  Coffin- 
Lauretta  sat  back  on  her  heels  and  smiled  up  at  me.  I 
had  an  impression  of  gray  eyes  wide  apart  beneath  smooth 
brown  hair,  a  nose  with  a  tiny  drift  of  freckles  across  the 
bridge,  and  a  square  little  chin. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  seriously,  and  extended  her 
hand. 

"It  was  Kavenaugh,  really,"  I  said  in  embarrassment. 

She  included  Kavenaugh  in  her  smile  of  gratitude.  "But 
you,  especially,"  she  said,  and  smiled  at  me  again,  still 
holding  my  hand.  I  was  aware  of  another  sensation  be- 
side embarrassment;  it  had  been  a  long  time  since  any 
woman  had  looked  at  me  other  than  impersonally. 

Then  Timmy,  the  terrier,  created  a  diversion  by  licking 
Larry's  face.  Larry  declared  himself  completely  recov- 
ered, since  the  threatened  scolding  seemed  averted.  They 
went  off  together  up  the  run  to  the  clubhouse  as  we  set 
out  again  for  the  Shadow;  all  the  way  out  Kavenaugh 
chuckled  to  himself  and  I  wondered  how  I  had  forgotten 
that  Peter  Annersley  had  so  good  looking  a  daughter. 
And  why  had  she  looked  at  me  in  that  fashion?  Grati- 
tude? 

I  came  ashore  that  night  and  found  myself  somewhat 
of  a  hero,  much  to  my  surprise  and  disgust.  Ham  Por- 
giss,  that  industrious  liar,  had  been  busy;  Larry  had 
gone  down  for  the  third  time  and  I  had  risked  my  life 


FLOOD  TIDE  231 

diving  for  him.  Peter  Annersley  insisted  upon  playing 
the  heavy  father  and  making  a  great  fuss  over  me.  In 
desperation  I  told  him  the  simple  truth,  that  Larry  could 
have  swum  ashore  without  help  and  that  whatever  rescue 
there  had  been  was  Kavenaugh's  doing.  I  was  accused 
of  colossal  modesty.  .  .  . 

I  date  my  real  interest  in  the  Arrowrock  crowd  from 
this  time.  The  Shadow  became  a  mere  dormitory  and 
ferry  boat  for  week  end  trips ;  I  spent  more  and  more  of 
my  time  ashore.  And  the  greater  part  of  this  time  ashore 
was  passed  at  the  gray  roofed  Annersley  house  between 
the  Fairleighs'  overpretentious  Colonial  front  and  the 
great  rambling  Garvin  place.  Larry  voiced  the  opinion 
that  I  was  a  good  scout.  Lauretta  adopted  me.  The 
fact  that  I  was  a  canvas  spoiler  was  discovered;  the  Ar- 
rowrock people  in  general  were  convinced  that  I  was  quite 
a  personage.  Even  Aunt  Hatty,  the  straight  backed, 
withered  old  soul  who  kept  house  for  Peter,  was  won  over. 
And  I  enjoyed  it  all.  Your  solitary  man  always  yearns  to 
be  noticed;  the  more  solitary  he  has  been  the  more  he 
enjoys  being  courted  by  others. 

I,  once  called  "Gloomy  Gus"  by  a  pompadoured  typist, 
became  adept  in  making  myself  agreeable.  I  discovered 
that  I  could  talk  for  an  hour  with  Mrs.  Fairleigh's  two 
empty  headed  daughters,  say  nothing,  and  yet  leave  be- 
hind me  the  impression  that  I  was  all  there  mentally.  Not 
that  I  degenerated  into  a  "parlor  snake"  or  a  "fan  hound" 
— I  cull  from  Larry's  pure  collegiate  English — but  I 
discovered  a  vein  of  metal  which  I  proceeded  to  coin  into 
the  counters  which  pass  current  among  Arrowrock  crowds. 
I  observed,  I  imitated — in  common  with  yourself  and  some 
millions  of  others  I  cherish  the  belief  that  in  me  the  stage 
lost  a  shining  light — and  thanks  perhaps  to  the  charitable 
inclinations  of  my  audience  I  succeeded  in  passing  off  my 
imitations  as  genuine  metal.  .  .  . 

One  of  my  audience  was  convinced,  and  the  discovery 
of  the  fact  brought  me  up  short  for  a  while. 


232  FLOOD  TIDE 

Peter  had  gone  through  some  minor  triumph  that  day 
— beaten  Larry  and  young  Peaslee  eighteen  holes,  I  think 
— and  was  correspondingly  elated  when  I  dropped  around 
that  evening.  I  heard  the  details  of  the  victory;  Lewis 
appeared,  all  white  shirt  front  and  ruddy  face,  and  I 
heard  the  details  again.  They  drifted  off  into  reminis- 
cences of  the  wool  brokerage  business  and  its  deterioration 
since  they  had  left  it.  Lauretta,  at  the  piano  behind  us, 
played  one  of  Macdowell's  sea  symphonies,  a  great  crash- 
ing thing  with  the  surge  and  sweep  of  galleons  in  mid- 
Atlantic  running  through  it,  the  keen  shrill  of  winds  in 
taut  rigging  in  its  overtones.  Presently  the  music 
dwindled  into  random  chords  and  ceased.  Peter  and  J. 
Everhard  still  plodded  on.  Some  impulse  led  me  to  turn 
and  glance  over  my  shoulder  at  Lauretta. 

She  had  swung  around  from  the  keyboard  and  sat  with 
her  shoulders  drooping  forward,  her  clasped  hands  inert 
on  her  knees.  .  .  .  She  looked  at  me  with  a  curious  in- 
tentness ;  what  I  saw  in  her  eyes  brought  my  heart  into 
my  throat.  For  a  bare  instant  her  eyes  met  mine,  then 
she  flushed,  swung  around  again  and  started  to  play  in- 
accurately. She  played  for  a  moment,  struck  a  great 
jangling  chord,  and  then  jumped  up  and  left  the 
room.  .  .  . 

For  a  week  after  that  I  avoided  the  Annerleys.  I  knew 
that  look,  knew  what  it  meant.  It  troubled  me.  I  had 
seen  it  before,  the  last  time  in  the  eyes  of  a  cashier  at  one 
of  our  stores.  Then,  as  now,  I  had  deliberately  run  away. 
But  then  I  had  forgotten  it  in  work — the  cashier  was  not 
particularly  attractive,  besides ;  now  I  dwelt  on  it,  argued 
with  myself,  thought  of  taking  the  Shadow  off  on  a  cruise 
and  was  restrained  from  abject  flight  only  by  a  sense  of 
humor.  Running  away — from  what? 

"It  won't  do,"  I  argued,  until  old  habit  put  the  ques- 
tion why?  into  my  head.  There  was  no  answer.  I  spare 
you  a  statement  of  my  mental  processes.  These  dialogues 


FLOOD  TIDE  233 

of  a  semi-confirmed  bachelor  are  interesting  to  no  one 
save  himself. 

I  came  back  to  the  Annersleys  eventually,  came  back 
cautiously  and  lost  my  caution  as  I  found  nothing 
changed.  Lauretta  met  me  with  an  exaggerated  but  well 
simulated  indifference,  Larry  had  been  away  on  a  cruise 
and  had  failed  to  notice  my  absence,  Peter  had  developed 
a  habit  of  slicing  his  drives  and  had  troubles  of  his  own. 

There  was  no  repetition  of  that  look,  and  in  time  I  al- 
most doubted  that  I  had  seen  it.  Lauretta  treated  me 
the  same  as  she  did  every  one,  bullied  me  covertly,  flat- 
tered, interfered,  and  then  smiled  at  me  with  gray  eyes 
beneath  level  brows  with  the  same  smile  which  she  em- 
ployed to  secure  her  ends  with  others.  Her  apparent  main 
object  in  life  was  having  her  own  way.  On  one  week  end 
trip  which  the  Annersleys  took  with  me  she  flattered  Berg- 
son,  my  sailing  master,  into  forgetting  his  gray  hair  and 
grandchildren,  got  herself  nicely  messy  and  oily  in  Kave- 
naugh's  sacred  engine  room,  and  reduced  Karl,  the  cook, 
to  abject  slavery.  He  waxed  his  mustache  and  changed 
his  apron  three  times  daily  during  that  trip  and  spent 
much  time  and  labor  in  concocting  what  he  proudly  an- 
nounced as  sauce  Laurette. 

But  despite  the  fact  that  to  all  appearances  I  was 
only  one  of  the  crowd,  I  clung  to  the  memory  of  that  look. 
I  found  it  a  pleasant  memory,  after  all.  And,  by  subtle 
gradations,  I  progressed  to  wondering  what  she  had  seen 
in  me  to  inspire  that  look.  I  finally  decided  that  it  was 
the  manner  of  the  beaux  tenebreux  which,  unconsciously 
or  not,  I  had  acquired.  A  beaux  tenebreux,  as  Estey 
used  to  tell  us,  is  the  gloomy,  raven  haired  hero  of  the 
old  French  classical  drama. 

"He  has  three  characteristics,"  I  remember  Estey  say- 
ing, "a  plumed  hat,  a  cloak,  and  a  past  full  of  sorrow. 
.  .  .  That  type,"  he  added  dryly,  "is  always  very  inter- 
esting— to  women." 


234  FLOOD  TIDE 

But  Estey  was  very  much  married  and  I  doubt  if  his 
testimony  was  unbiased. 


A  fragment  of  one  of  Captain  Waldron's  highly  colored 
romances  recurs  to  me.  He  described  a  ship  which  he  had 
once  sailed  on. 

"She  was  a  ratty  old  hooker,"  he  said  reminiscently, 
"and  more  mates  than  a  few  had  cussed  their  way  into 
hell  from  off  her  decks." 

His  description  applies  to  the  Shadow  III,  not  that 
she  was  a  "ratty  old  hooker,"  but  that  I  nearly  followed 
the  example  of  the  legendary  mates. 

Marks  was  the  cause.  His  desire  to  reinterest  me  in 
business  was  neither  dead  nor  sleeping.  Despite  our  agree- 
ment, or  perhaps  in  accordance  with  his  interpretation 
of  it,  he  persisted  in  breaking  in  on  me,  finding  new  meth- 
ods of  interference,  trying  them,  and  passing  on  to  some 
new  method  as  he  found  me  still  recalcitrant.  His  most 
annoying  act  was  the  dragging  of  the  Shadow  into  busi- 
ness, following  the  precedent  of  Mohamet  and  the  moun- 
tain. 

He  came  to  consider  the  Shadow  as  an  extension  of 
the  offices,  rather  than  my  private  possession.  Nearly 
every  Saturday  saw  a  crowd  brought  down  for  a  week 
end  outing — the  consummation  of  some  business  deal  lurk- 
ing in  the  background.  Marks  always  wore  a  smug  smile 
of  satisfaction  as  they  disembarked  on  Monday.  Finally 
he  went  too  far.  My  patience  snapped.  There  was  a  deal 
on  with  an  especially  hard-faced  crowd — the  Western 
Biscuit  people,  I  think  they  were.  I  ran  the  Shadow  out 
beyond  Montauk  in  a  stiff  breeze,  pumped  out  half  the 
water  ballast  and  stalled  the  engines — all  quite  uninten- 
tionally. The  entire  crowd,  Marks  included,  were  most 
enthusiastically  seasick.  The  deal  fell  through  and  Marks 
never  forgave  me. 


FLOOD  TIDE  235 

He  was  far  from  cordial  that  winter.  Whether  or  not 
he  suspected  that  he  had  been  the  victim  of  a  conspiracy, 
I  know  that  after  the  failure  of  our  negotiations  with 
Western  Biscuit  his  objections  to  my  absence  ceased 
abruptly.  He  became  indifferent;  whether  I  came  or 
went  was  a  matter  of  no  moment  to  him.  In  one  way  I 
regretted  the  change.  This  intermittent  debate  on  work 
vs.  pleasure  had  been  a  game  between  us,  sometimes  ser- 
ious and  sometimes  not,  and  its  cessation  left  an  unfilled 
blank. 

But  his  indifference  failed  to  trouble  me  greatly.  I  was 
not  longer  dependent  solely  on  The  Stores  for  employ- 
ment during  the  winter.  The  Fairleighs  and  the  Lewises 
and  Peter  Annersley  stayed  at  the  Arrowrock  that  win- 
ter and  I  became  a  frequent  visitor. 

On  one  of  these  visits  I  was  inspired,  through  J.  Ever- 
hard,  to  revive  my  plans  for  building  on  the  twenty  acres 
that  I  had  bought  across  the  bay.  I  even  became  involved 
in  negotiations  with  a  young  architect  named  DeWitt, 
an  engaging  personality  with  tortoise  shell  spectacles  and 
a  sturdy  imagination.  He  became  very  enthusiastic  over 
my  plans — I  suspect  that  he  needed  the  money — and  in 
due  course  of  time  submitted  sketches.  There  were  three 
of  these,  immense  shambling  creations  burgeoning  with 
turrets  and  gables,  all  evidently  planned  with  the  object 
of  finding  out  just  how  much  I  would  stand  for.  We 
spent  an  evening  over  them  at  J.  Everhard's  and  finally 
decided  that  by  cutting  off  fifty  feet  and  three  turrets 
from  the  least  blatant  of  DeWitt's  constructions  we 
might  obtain  something  which  would  serve.  I  carried 
the  sketches  back  to  town,  threw  them  on  the  table  and 
forgot  them.  Young  DeWitt  bothered  me  occasionally 
for  a  time  and  then  apparently  forgot  them  also.  They 
lay  there  and  gathered  dust  until  Lauretta  dug  them 
out. 

She  and  Larry  came  down  to  the  old  rooms  which  I 
still  clung  to,  intent  upon  dragging  me  off  to  the  the- 


236  FLOOD  TIDE 

ater;  during  their  Christmas  vacation  it  must  have  been, 
for  I  remember  sloshing  through  wet  snow  on  my  way 
home.  Some  unexpected  business  had  detained  me  at 
the  office;  on  my  arrival  I  found  that  Lauretta,  tiring  of 
inaction,  had  started  to  clean  up  the  table  which  served 
as  catch-all  for  books,  pamphlets,  letters  and  those 
thousand  miscellaneous  articles  which  have  no  settled  place 
in  the  general  order  of  things.  In  the  process  she  had 
unearthed  DeWitt's  ambitious  drawings  from  one  of  the 
lower  strata  and  pegged  them  out  on  the  table  with  ink- 
pots and  paste  jars.  She  and  Larry  surveyed  them  in 
wonder  as  I  entered;  Skip,  in  the  background,  hovered 
visibly  between  a  desire  to  please  my  visitors  and  fear  of 
the  consequences  which  might  arise  from  this  disturbance 
of  the  sacred  catch-all. 

"I  know  that  this  one  is  a  sanitarium,"  said  Larry, 
"but  these  others  are  too  large  for  apartment  houses  and 
too  small  for  hotels.  What  are  they,  Coffin — Bakst  ar- 
chitectural nightmares  ?" 

"Regular  houses,"  I  answered.  "  'Designed  for  John 
Coffin,  Esq.,  by  R.  Plympton  DeWitt,'  just  as  the  label 
in  the  corner  says.  Nice  places,  aren't  they?" 

"Very  homelike,"  said  Lauretta  sarcastically.  "But 
who's  going  to  live  in  them?  Not  you?" 

"You've  guessed  it.  On  the  north  shore — you  know 
that  land  I  bought  two  years  ago?  Which  one  would 
look  best?" 

"Really?"  said  Lauretta,  looking  at  me  in  disappoint- 
ment. 

"Why  not?  Everhard  Lewis  approves  of  this  one." 
I  indicated  a  French  chateau  with  Colonial  influence. 

"Oh,  that !"  she  said  scornfully.  "He  has  rotten  taste." 
She  studied  the  drawings  for  a  moment  with  growing 
scorn.  "This  DeWitt  shouldn't  be  allowed  at  large — 
putting  silly  ideas  in  people's  heads.  Promise  me  that 
you  won't  build  any  of  these." 


FLOOD  TIDE  237 

I  promised  willingly  enough.  I  had  no  great  need  of 
a  house.  "But  you're  depriving  a  struggling  young  ar- 
chitect of  a  chance  to  shine." 

"Depriving  him  of  a  chance  to  make  an  idiot  of  him- 
self and  you  too,"  she  answered,  biting  thoughtfully  at 
the  end  of  a  pencil.  "And  I  have  a  plan  of  my  own — not 
exactly  mine,  for  I  stole  it,  just  as  he  stole  these,  prob- 
ably. But  mine  is  stolen  from  a  home,  not  a  dipsoma- 
niac vision  like  these." 

She  reversed  one  of  the  sheets  and  drew  little  lines 
thoughtfully.  "Do  you  remember  how  we  used  to  go  over 
there  when  we  were  kids,  Larry?  When  dad  would  let 
us,  and  sometimes  when  he  wouldn't.  And — 

"And  I  used  to  get  licked  for  leading  you  astray," 
laughed  Larry. 

"I  know — and  it  was  always  my  fault,  really.  You 
used  to  fish  off  Valentine's  Rock — where  the  man  hid  from 
the  Indians — while  I  played  house  on  that  little  level  patch 
between  the  two  arms  of  rock  that  come  down  from  the 
woods.  You  must  know  that  place,"  she  appealed  to 
me,  "they  come  down  like  two  sprawling  lion's  paws,  with 
those  big  pines  for  the  lion's  head.  And  once  in  a  while 
he  bends  over  and  sniffs  at  the  top  of  the  big  oak  that 
stands  in  the  level  place.  ...  I  used  to  plan  houses  that 
I  would  build  there  some  day,  when  my  ship  came  in. 
They  were  foolish  houses,  of  course,  worse  than  these 
here,  all  turrets  and  wings  and  angles.  But  last  winter 
I  found  the  house  that  belongs  there;  of  course  you 
couldn't  move  it  down  there,  but  you  could  build  one  like 
it  around  the  oak  tree.  Not  around  it,  exactly,  but  be- 
hind it.  Like  this." 

We  bent  over  the  table  on  either  side  of  her  as  she 
sketched  rapidly.  She  made  a  tiny  ground  plan  in  the 
shape  of  a  letter  L  first;  "Just  to  get  the  angle  of  the 
gables,"  she  explained  in  a  patronizing  tone.  Then, 
with  that  as  a  basis,  the  front  elevation  grew  under  her 


238  FLOOD  TIDE 

swift  strokes.  It  was  a  very  simple  plan,  just  a  low, 
broad  structure  with  a  roof  coming  down  midway  be- 
tween the  two  stories  and  pierced  by  dormer  windows  for 
the  chambers.  The  interior  angle  of  the  L  was  cut  across 
at  a  point  midway  on  the  arms  to  give  dignity  to  the 
entrance;  on  either  side,  where  it  joined  the  arms,  she 
drew  an  immense  chimney  half  protruding  from  the  struc- 
ture and  reaching  up  above  it  to  a  level  with  the  ridge- 
pole. 

She  leaned  back  and  regarded  her  work  dubiously.  "It 
lacks  detail,"  she  criticized.  "There's  a  doorway  here," 
indicating  the  filled  angle,  "with  a  broad  fanlight  over 
it  and  trellises  on  each  side.  And  in  the  angle  is  the  oak 
tree,  with  perhaps  a  paved  court  around  it.  It's  just 
a  rough  sketch — but  do  you  like  it?" 

"I  do  like  it,"  I  agreed.    "I'll  build  your  house." 

"Good!"  she  said  in  satisfaction,  and  began  to  sketch 
in  details,  windows  and  the  stonework  of  the  chimneys 
and  the  trellises  on  either  side  of  the  entrance.  Larry 
tired  of  watching  her,  yawned,  and-  went  over  to  inspect 
my  book  case.  .  .  . 

"It's  not  mine,"  she  said  as  she  put  on  the  finishing 
touches  about  the  base  of  the  oak  tree.  Her  tone  was 
one  of  abstraction;  yet  there  was  a  slight  quaver  in  her 
voice. 

"Nor  mine  either,  until  you've  finished  it,"  I  answered. 

"Poor  orphan  house!"  she  said  softly,  so  softly  that  I 
should  have  missed  her  voice  had  my  head  not  been  close 
to  hers  as  I  leaned  over  the  table  beside  her. 

"We  might  adopt  it  together — call  it  ours,"  I  suggested 
in  her  own  tone. 

There  was  no  answer.  But  her  flying  fingers  stumbled, 
and  as  I  watched  I  saw  a  deep  flush  pass  over  her  half 
averted  face,  pass  slowly  as  the  first  gleam  of  dawn 
touches  and  awakens  a  quiet  expanse  of  untroubled 
water.  . 


FLOOD  TIDE  239 


By  June  the  Shack — as  Larry  christened  it — was  well 
on  the  road  to  completion.  Young  DeWitt  was  surprised 
at  my  sudden  burst  of  enthusiasm  and  seemed  rather  to 
resent  the  discarding  of  his  carefully  planned  structures. 
After  one  or  two  weak  attempts  to  show  the  superiority 
of  his  plans  over  Lauretta's  he  gave  in,  consulted  an 
apochryphal  list  of  engagements  and  promised  to  devote 
his  entire  time  to  my  service.  With  her  rough  sketch 
as  a  basis  he  evolved  a  marvelously  technical  set  of  plans, 
and,  upon  receiving  Lauretta's  permission,  work  was 
started.  By  June  he  had  run  up  the  walls  and  crowned 
them  with  the  red  tiled  roof;  the  rougher  part  of  the 
work  had  been  accomplished  and  the  workmen  were  busy 
on  the  interior. 

I  came  down  to  the  Arrowrock  earlier  than  ever  that 
year,  partly  with  the  childish  feeling  that  by  coming 
early  I  was  showing  Marks  that  his  indifference  had  no 
effect  on  me,  partly  because  I  found  building  houses  and 
boats  more  pleasant  than  wrestling  with  unrealities  at  the 
offices.  Besides  the  Shack  I  supervised  the  building  of 
the  two  boats  which  Larry  and  I  had  planned — Warp  and 
Woof  we  called  them  finally.  Cheyney  built  them  for  us 
at  his  yards,  and  with  Kavenaugh's  assistance  we  had 
them  ready  when  Larry  and  Lauretta  returned  from 
school.  For  the  first  time  in  a  long  while  I  was  really 
busy  at  creation,  creating  little  things,  spending  money 
rather  than  making  it,  but  still  busy  and  glad  of  it. 

I  remember  many  pleasant  things  of  that  summer  as  I 
sit  here  and  look  back  on  it,  and  through  all  these  re- 
membrances, binding  them  together  and  connecting  the 
disassociated  parts,  runs  the  figure  of  Lauretta,  always 
with  the  faint  half  smile  on  her  lips  and  a  little  sun  drift 
of  freckles  across  the  bridge  of  her  nose  and  always  hav- 
ing her  own  way.  She  bullied  and  flattered  young  De- 
Witt  into  a  state  of  abject  slavery,  suggesting  changes 


240  FLOOD  TIDE 

in  the  Shack  and  then  persuading  him,  in  some  subtle 
way,  that  the  suggestions  were  his  own.  She  stole  the 
Woof  and  went  off  on  private  excursions  across  the 
Sound,  coming  back  disappointed  because  the  Woof  re- 
fused to  misbehave.  She  and  Larry  beat  me  at  every- 
thing save  tennis  and  swimming.  Tennis  I  refused  to 
play  unless  they  eliminated  the  net  which  some  confounded 
fool  left  across  the  court  to  catch  my  best  smashes ; 
they  refused  my  simple  request  and  I  was  content  to  sit 
with  Peter  on  the  side  lines.  Swimming  has  always  been 
my  one  physical  accomplishment;  it  has  always  been  the 
greatest  fun  in  the  world  to  swing  slowly  along  with  head 
buried,  watching  the  crabs  and  schools  of  cunners  among 
the  sea  weed  and  kelp  in  the  swaying  green  depths  below. 
Once  in  a  while  Larry  beat  me  in  a  sprint  out  to  the  raft, 
but  Lauretta  always  lagged  far  behind. 

And,  incidentally,  I  won  the  confidence  of  Aunt  Hatty. 
During  the  previous  summer  she  had  regarded  me  with 
shadowy  suspicion,  as  a  newcomer  and  one  whose  niches 
in  Arrowrock  society  was  not  yet  secured.  Now  I  seemed 
secure  of  my  place,  and  my  appearance  set  the  clockwork 
smile  in  motion.  At  one  time  or  another  she  made  me 
the  confidant  of  a  vast  volume  of  family  history;  how 
Larry  had  always  been  a  trial  to  her,  how  Lauretta  had 
always  been  stubborn,  and — a  rather  embarrassing  subject 
— how  Peter  always  forgot  to  change  his  shirts  until  she 
wrested  the  old  one  from  him  by  main  force.  Usually 
she  talked  about  Lauretta  and  I  listened  willingly. 

I  remember  one  afternoon  in  particular ;  she  talked  mo- 
notonously and  busied  herself  over  an  endless  piece  of 
embroidery  while  I  listened  patiently.  I  give  you  only 
fragments  of  her  main  thread ;  between  fragments  she  wan- 
dered off  into  limitless  fields  of  inconsequential  memories. 

".  .  .  bit  her  in  the  leg  and  she  never  so  much  as  cried. 
A  little  yellow  dog  it  was,  and  she  wouldn't  let  them  shoot 
it  ...  left  a  scar,  of  course,  but  out  of  sight.  .  .  .  Very 
forward,  although  I  guess  there  are  enough  of  the  other 


FLOOD  TIDE  241 

kind  around  .  .  .  she  gets  it  from  the  other  side  of  the 
family  .  .  .  hit  him  in  the  eye  .  .  .  cried  because  Law- 
rence said  he  would  enlist  in  the  navy  so  she  couldn't 
bother  him  .  .  .  swore  dreadfully  and  Peter  spanked  her 
...  all  arms  and  limbs  as  girls  are  at  that  age  .  .  .  fell 
out  of  the  tree  and  broke  her  nose.  But  she  climbed 
higher  than  Lawrence." 

She  broke  a  thread  at  this  point  and  her  gurgling  flow 
of  ancient  history  ceased.  The  thread  mended,  she  paused 
with  needle  poised. 

"She  takes  a  great  interest  in  your  new  house,"  she 
said,  and  shot  me  an  oblique  glance  over  one  thin  shoulder. 

Aunt  Hatty,  I  decided,  was  not  so  dull  as  some  people 
believed  her  to  be. 


All  things  come  to  an  end,  and  so  did  the  building  of 
the  Shack.  In  late  August  the  contractor  unwillingly 
confessed  that  he  could  find  no  further  excuse  for  keeping 
his  crew  about  the  place;  the  captains  of  the  saw  and 
chisel  and  the  kings  of  the  trowel  and  spade  departed  re- 
luctantly. I  watched  the  last  of  them  go  that  afternoon, 
locked  the  doors  and  went  over  to  town  in  the  Warp. 

There  was  no  one  about  the  Annersley  place,  the  piazza 
was  deserted,  but  from  the  living  room  came  weird  wails 
mingled  with  the  frantic  yelping  of  Timmy.  Larry  and 
Lauretta  were  at  the  further  end  of  the  room,  bent  over 
the  phonograph;  before  it  sat  Timmy,  wailing  to  high 
heaven  and  beating  the  floor  steadily  with  his  little  stub 
tail.  He  yelped  in  greeting  as  I  entered  and  ran  to  me  for 
protection  from  his  tormentors,  whining  and  lapping 
wildly  at  my  face  as  I  picked  him  up.  He  had  good  rea- 
son for  his  wails.  The  phonograph  shrieked  and  wailed 
away,  its  song  now  rising  to  a  high  banshee  whine  and 
now  dying  away  into  guttural  growls,  like  a  full  orches- 


242  FLOOD  TIDE 

tra  of  the  Chinese  fiddles  which  perhaps  boys  still  make 
from  tin  cans  and  resined  string. 

"A  new  record?"  I  made  myself  audible  above  the  fiend- 
ish clamor. 

"An  old  one — played  backward,"  grinned  Larry,  listen- 
ing with  appreciation.  "Played  for  Timmy's  benefit. 
He  likes  it." 

Lauretta  slid  down  on  the  floor  and  gathered  the  wail- 
ing Timmy  in  her  arms.  "He's  tinkered  with  its  innards, 
as  Kavenaugh  would  say,"  she  explained.  "It  runs  back- 
ward. There,  there  Timmy,  shall  we  shut  it  off?"  Timmy 
burrowed  his  head  into  the  folds  of  her  dress  and  sig- 
nified his  assent. 

"We  had  to  do  something,"  said  Larry  as  he  switched 
off  the  wails,  "so  we  made  Timmy  pay  his  board." 

"Mean  things,  aren't  they,  Timmy?"  Timmy  shook 
himself  free,  smelled  disapprovingly  of  the  cabinet,  and 
stalked  off  in  dignity,  taking  the  life  of  the  party  with 
him. 

Larry  tinkered  with  the  "innards"  of  the  machine  again, 
tried  a  record  to  see  if  it  ran  correctly,  listened  lazily, 
and  then  subsided  to  yawning  indolence.  Lauretta  made 
one  or  two  half  hearted  efforts  to  find  something  inter- 
esting about  the  room,  failed,  and  succumbed  to  the 
drowsy  afternoon  languor.  I  pawed  over  the  magazines, 
found  them  all  old,  and  yawned  in  sympathy  with  Larry. 
Timmy  reappeared,  preceded  by  a  pitter-patter  of  toe- 
nails  across  the  piazza;  he  looked  around  droopy  eyed, 
yawned,  thumped  his  tail,  and  yawned  again.  Larry 
laughed  and  threw  a  book  at  him. 

"Most  insulting  dog  I  ever  saw,"  he  said,  and  then,  with 
a  faint  show  of  interest:  "How's  the  Shack  coming 
along?" 

"Burrows  called  off  the  last  of  his  men  to-day,"  I  an- 
swered. "He  declared  with  tears  in  his  eyes  that  he 
couldn't  think  of  another  thing  to  do." 

"Industrious    race,    carpenters,"    commented    Larry. 


FLOOD  TIDE  243 

"When  they  can't  find  anything  to  do  there  just  isn't 
anything.  No  use  looking."  He  yawned  again.  "Dull 
old  town.  I'll  be  glad  to  get  back  to  work  again." 

"Fine  lot  of  work  you  do,"  scoffed  Lauretta.  She 
thought  for  a  moment,  then  jumped  up,  filled  with  a  sud- 
den idea.  "I  have  it,"  she  announced.  "We'll  go  over 
in  the  Louise  and  inspect  the  house.  We  haven't  been 
over  that  way  for  a  month,  Larry." 

"Too  late,"  objected  Larry. 

"Nonsense,"  she  decided.  "I'll  get  up  a  lunch  and  we 
can  stay  as  long  as  we  please." 

"I  detest  picnic  lunches,"  Larry  objected.  "Ham  sand- 
wiches— Graham  crackers — red  ants — spiders — warm 
olives  in  a  long  necked  bottle  and  nothing  to  spear  them 
with.  And  besides,"  seized  with  a  sudden  spasm  of  right- 
eousness, "I  ought  to  plug  for  those  deferred  exams  of 
mine.  Back  to  the  old  grind  again." 

"Logical,  isn't  he?"  commented  Lauretta.  "You're 
coming  whether  you  want  to  or  not.  You  can  bring  your 
books." 

"Darned  tyrant!"  grumbled  Larry  as  she  went  off  to 
pack  up  the  luncheon.  .  .  . 

Lauretta  came  back  weighted  down  with  an  immense 
hamper  which  she  set  down  with  a  thud.  "I  just  grabbed 
everything  in  sight,"  she  said,  licking  her  fingers.  She 
linked  her  arm  in  mine  and  we  started.  "Be  careful  of 
it,  Larry,"  she  called  back. 

I  looked  around.  Larry  tried  the  weight  of  the  ham- 
per, grinned,  scratched  his  head,  and  then  picked  it  up 
and  started  after  us. 

"Is  it  heavy?"  she  asked  as  we  went  down  the  hill. 

Larry  shifted  it  from  one  arm  to  the  other  and  said 
that  he  could  carry  it  all  day. 

"I  put  in  only  seven  books,"  she  went  on  with  a  smoth- 
ered laugh.  I  think  that  Larry  swore  under  his  breath. 
Sometimes  his  patience  was  sorely  tried. 

We  went  over  in  the  Louise,  the  slow,  comfortable  old 


244  FLOOD  TIDE 

sloop  which  Peter  Annersley  still  clung  to,  sliding  slowly 
along  in  the  light  breeze  with  the  green  shore,  hazy  in 
the  afternoon  sun,  on  our  left. 

"It  fits  in,  doesn't  it?"  said  Lauretta  lazily,  as  we 
rounded  the  last  point  and  saw  the  house.  Her  descrip- 
tion was  accurate.  It  did  fit  in.  It  had  an  air  of  per- 
manency, of  having  been  there  for  uncounted  years. 
Barring  a  lack  of  hangings  at  the  windows  and  a  bare 
patch  here  and  there  on  the  lawn,  it  was  complete.  The 
great  oak  hung  over  the  two  chimneys  as  though  it  had 
brushed  their  tops  for  years ;  the  dark  masses  of  the  pines 
stood  on  tiptoe  and  peered  over  the  roof  from  the  rocky 
heights  behind  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  quiet  Sound  and 
the  far  blue  coast  of  Long  Island. 

We  landed  and  went  over  the  completed  house,  bare  of 
furniture  and  with  the  floors  still  littered  with  odds  and 
ends  of  plaster  and  lumber,  but  still  a  finished  work. 
Lauretta  was  frankly  pleased  with  it  all,  for  it  was  partly 
her  work,  and  even  Larry  agreed  that  it  was  "some  hovel." 
As  for  myself — well,  it  was  a  house  and  I  had  built  it  and 
meant  to  live  in  it  some  day.  I  took  more  pleasure  in 
showing  it  than  in  the  house  itself. 

The  sun  was  low  when  we  finished  our  survey  and 
Larry  began  to  hint  that  it  was  time  he  was  paid  for 
his  labors  with  the  hamper.  He  proposed  that  we  eat 
under  the  tree  before  the  house. 

"Indeed  we  will  not,"  decided  Lauretta.  "We'll  eat  in 
the  house  like  regular  folks.  Don't  be  a  savage,  Larry. 
You  two  can  get  those  saw  horses  down  from  upstairs 
and  bring  in  those  loose  planks,  too.  We'll  have  a  table." 

She  surveyed  our  work  critically.  "And  now  clear 
out,"  she  ordered.  "Mustn't  interfere  with  the  cook.  If 
you  want,  you  can  go  down  to  the  Louise  and  bring  up 
three  of  the  folding  chairs.  And  don't  hurry  back." 

We  were  loitering  back  up  the  slope  when  she  appeared 
at  the  doorway  and  beat  on  a  sheet  of  copper  roofing,  in 
the  lack  of  a  dinner  gong. 


FLOOD  TIDE  245 

During  our  short  absence  she  had  worked  wonders. 
White  linen  and  silver  gleamed  on  the  table  beneath 
shaded  candles ;  the  rubbish  left  by  the  carpenters  blazed 
and  flickered  in  the  fireplace.  She  had  even  found  time 
to  roll  in  the  neck  of  her  dress  and  turn  up  the  sleeves 
in  passable  imitation  of  an  evening  gown.  Larry  sur- 
veyed the  transformed  room,  whistled  in  amazement  and 
then  bowed  to  her  gravely. 

"Pardon  our  rough  appearance,"  he  said.  "You  should 
have  packed  our  evening  clothes  in  the  hamper." 

"I  didn't  think  of  it,"  she  confessed,  flushed  and  smil- 
ing. 

"You  remembered  everything  else,"  he  conceded  in 
appreciation. 

He  even  forgave  her  the  weight  of  the  hamper  as  the 
meal  progressed,  and  when  he  leaned  back  with  a  sigh 
of  repletion  Laury  produced  from  beneath  the  table  a 
vacuum  bottle  filled  with  steaming  coffee.  Larry  ap- 
plauded. She  reached  again  and  brought  up  a  tin  of 
cigarettes. 

"Aladdin  and  his  lamp  have  nothing  on  you,"  he  said 
in  rare  praise. 

The  slow  summer  twilight  drew  on  as  we  talked;  dark- 
ness crept  across  the  dim  blue  vista  of  the  Sound.  All 
outside  faded  to  a  velvety  blur,  with  only  the  slender  mast 
of  the  Louise  reaching  up  against  the  eastern  sky  and 
tracing  slow  arabesques  against  the  last  reflection  of  the 
sunset. 

Larry  became  vaguely  expectant  regarding  the  coming 
year,  and  then  drifted  off  into  a  recital  of  the  exploits  of 
one  "old  'Fox'  Trott,"  his  room  mate  of  the  past  year. 
He  modestly  suppressed  his  own  part  in  the  exploits.  I 
listened  automatically,  interjecting  comments  at  suitable 
points,  really  engrossed  in  watching  Lauretta's  profile. 
She  sat  between  us,  facing  the  last  flicker  of  the  tiny  fire, 
resting  her  chin  on  her  hands  and  gazing  far  away  at 
nothing.  I  wondered  what  she  thought  of  the  house  which 


246  FLOOD  TIDE 

she  had  planned,  progressed  from  that  to  wondering  what 
she  thought  of  me,  and  from  that  drifted  off  into  thoughts 
of  my  own. 

" — entuthen  excelones  ires  parasangus,"  said  Larry  fi- 
nally, with  a  note  of  question  in  his  voice. 

"Yes.     Go  on,"  I  answered  in  faint  encouragement. 

"Uh  huh,"  murmured  Laury,  and  nodded  at  something 
beyond  the  unseen  coast  of  Long  Island. 

A  jangle  of  spinning  metal  brought  me  back  to  the 
present.  I  looked  up  to  see  two  coppers  on  the  plate  in 
the  center  of  the  table. 

"For  your  thoughts,"  offered  Larry. 

Lauretta  looked  up,  bewildered ;  her  eyes  met  mine  and 
held  them  for  a  long  moment  and  I  had  a  glimpse  of  the 
vision  which  had  engrossed  her  attention.  Then  the  fire 
flared  up  in  an  expiring  gasp  and  her  color  changed. 

"Don't  be  foolish,  Larry,"  she  said  severely  as  he 
shook  the  plate  before  her.  "No,  not  even  for  both  cents. 
One — one  silly  person  is  enough  for  one  family.  Go  on ; 
you  were  saying  something  about  Fox  Trott  and  the 
book  agent?" 

Larry  took  up  his  recital  again,  badgered  by  her  in- 
cessant questions.  He  had  asked  for  attention,  she  de- 
fended. 

It  was  late  dusk  when  we  dismantled  the  table  and 
packed  up.  We  made  our  way  down  to  the  landing  in 
procession,  lighting  the  way  with  the  candles ;  their  clear 
yellow  flames  ascended  flickerless  in  the  evening  calm.  We 
hoisted  the  sail  and  stood  out,  scarcely  moving  under  the 
impulse  of  the  slow  breath  of  wind  beyond  the  point. 

"You'll  find  your  books  still  in  the  hamper,  Larry," 
observed  Lauretta  sweetly. 

"I  never  study  by  lamplight,"  he  announced.  "Bad  for 
the  eyes,  you  know." 

"And  after  carrying  them  all  this  way." 

"That's  so,"  he  considered.     "It  is  a  waste  of  effort, 


FLOOD  TIDE  247 

isn't  it?  I  suppose  I  may  as  well  have  a  look  at  the 
Faerie  Queene.  I  can  get  that  out  of  the  way." 

He  went  below,  and  the  yellow  radiance  of  the  swing- 
ing lamp  shone  out  and  made  a  little  world  of  light  in  the 
darkness.  We  heard  the  rapid  rustle  of  pages,  and  his 
voice  came  to  us,  raised  in  protest. 

"Say,  the  darned  thing  takes  up  the  whole  book!"  he 
called.  "What  a  whale  of  a  poem !" 

He  grumbled  for  a  moment  and  then  settled  down  to 
read;  quiet  descended  once  more.  Something  of  the  spirit 
of  sailing  ships  came  over  us,  the  calm,  steady  movement, 
the  dependence  upon  the  elemental  forces  of  wind  and 
water,  the  detachment  from  all  haste.  We  sailed  on,  the 
canvas  scarcely  drawing,  a  fragment  of  light  and  life 
amid  the  dusk. 

The  hamper,  opened  by  Larry  in  his  search  for  Spenser, 
lay  at  our  feet ;  atop  of  the  accumulation  within  was  the 
plate  with  Larry's  offering. 

"What  an  idiot  he  is,"  said  Lauretta  in  a  low  voice. 
She  poked  at  the  plate  with  a  slender  foot  and  sent  the 
coins  tinkling  down  among  the  china  and  candlesticks 
below.  "I  wouldn't  have  told  him.  Would  you?" 

"Yes." 

"Yes?"  she  encouraged  faintly. 

"I  wondered  what  you  thought  about  me.  I  think  I 
know." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  in  a  small  voice. 

Larry's  voice,  raised  in  whining  falsetto  song — not  from 
Spenser,  however — floated  up  to  us,  accompanied  by  a 
heel  and  toe  on  the  locker  as  he  lay  sprawled  at  ease 
under  the  light. 

"/  want  to  marry  a  dashm'  young  he-hero, 

Just  like  they  do  in  a  book; 
One  who  will  carry  me  far  o'er  the  o-hoshun, 

Some  place  where  no  one  will  look; 
Ro-homance  we'll  find  in  each  thing  that  surrounds  us, 


248  FLOOD  TIDE 

In  JiUl  side  and  valley  and  brook: 

Att  will  be  joyous, 

And  girlous  and  boyous — 
Just  like  it  is  M  a  book." 

Refreshed,  he  returned  to  his  reading. 

We  sat  in  silence  for  a  moment ;  a  passing  ripple  swayed 
the  rudder  and  brought  her  shoulder  against  mine.  She 
remained  half  leaning  against  me,  her  feet  bathed  in  the 
yellow  light  of  the  lamp  and  all  above  that  a  mere  blot 
of  white  against  the  darkness. 

"I'm  neither  dashing,  nor  young,  nor  a  hero,"  I  said 
slowly,  "but " 

"Does  that  matter?"  she  whispered,  and  raised  her 
head  slowly;  her  dress,  still  turned  in  at  the  throat, 
showed  a  little  gleaming  triangle  of  sun  brown.  I  slipped 
my  arm  about  her  and  drew  her  close,  her  face  very  dim 
and  sweet  under  the  piled  masses  of  her  hair. 

"No,  it  doesn't,"  I  asserted  confidently. 


But  somehow  or  other  it  wasn't  "just  like  it  is  in  a 
book."  I  suppose  I  should  say  that  I  went  back  to  the 
Shadow  that  night  and  walked  the  deck  under  the  silent 
stars,  dreaming  strange,  sweet  dreams  and  resolving  that 
the  new  volume  which  opened  before  me  should  be  stained 
by  none  of  the  blots  and  erasures  which  had  marred  the 
old.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  I 
walked  the  deck  and  thought,  but  my  thoughts  were  of 
another  order.  I  wondered  whether  I  was  a  conquering 
lover  or  a  captured  vassal.  I  felt  more  like  the  second 
than  the  first ;  I  seemed  caught  up  in  a  whirling  progres- 
sion of  events  over  which  I  had  no  control.  I  felt  happy, 
but  it  was  a  happiness  strangely  mingled  with  doubt. 

I  came  ashore  the  next  morning  still  doubtful.  Lau- 
retta met  me  at  the  head  of  the  run  leading  up  from  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  249 

float;  my  doubts  increased  rather  than  diminished  as  I 
saw  her  framed  against  the  shadows  of  the  chart  room 
in  the  long  rays  of  the  morning  sun.  She  looked  on  me 
with  an  air  of  proprietorship ;  when  a  man  passes  thirty- 
five  and  is  still  single  he  instinctively  recoils  from  such  a 
look,  however  pleased  he  may  be. 

"I  saw  you  coming  from  the  house,"  she  explained 
frankly. 

I  drew  two  chairs  to  the  rail  and  we  sat  looking  out 
over  the  harbor  and  the  Sound  dimpling  in  the  sunlight. 
The  distant  coast  of  Long  Island  hung  suspended  in  the 
air,  a  long  blue  ragged  line  hung  upon  an  invisible  spring 
which  vibrated  slowly.  In  the  harbor  below  us  a  sail 
lifted,  crawling  upward  in  slow,  regular  jerks,  caught 
the  faint  breeze  and  stole  slowly  out  through  the  anchored 
craft.  Lauretta  blinked  and  yawned,  then  swung  her  chair 
about,  half  facing  me. 

"About  last  night "  she  hesitated. 

"Yes?"  I  encouraged,  and  wondered  what  was  coming. 

She  touched  the  sleeve  of  my  coat  in  a  furtive  little 
caress.  "Let's  not  tell  any  one,  for  a  while,"  she  said. 

"As  you  wish,"  I  answered  and  was  conscious  of  an  in- 
explicable sense  of  relief.  Curiosity  prompted  me :  "But 
why?" 

"Two  reasons,  and  they're  both  foolish,"  she  confessed. 
"I  want  another  year  at  school.  I  need  it.  You  wouldn't 
want  me  to  be  half  educated  all  my  life,  would  you?  I 
thought  not.  And  a  girl  who  goes  back  to  school  fla- 
grantly engaged  has  a  rotten  time  of  it.  I've  seen  it  work. 
They're  envious,  you  know — and  mean."  She  contem- 
plated their  depravity  in  silence  for  a  moment.  "Not  that 
I  care,"  she  said  belligerently,  "but  I  do  care.  You  see  ?" 

"They " 

"Oh,  they  look  wise  whenever  you  get  a  letter;  they 
ask  silly  questions,  poke  in  where  they're  not  wanted." 

"I  see.  They  would  pick  on  you.  Don't  let  them. 
And  the  second  reason?" 


250  FLOOD  TIDE 

"I  don't  know  whether  to  tell  you  or  not."  She  bit 
her  lips  and  flushed.  "I've  never  had  a  secret,  and  I've 
always  wanted  one.  Look,  suppose  you  and  I  went  to 
dad  this  morning  and  told  him?  We  will,  if  you  want — 
but  what  would  he  say?" 

"That's  easy,"  I  answered.  "Bless  you;  you're  mak- 
ing a  fool  of  yourself  but  I  can't  help  it." 

"Exactly.     And  Larry?" 

"That's  a  harder  one,"  I  considered.  "I  think  he'd 
fidget  about  and  rub  his  nose " 

"I've  tried  to  break  him  of  that,"  she  interrupted,  as 
though  speaking  of  a  disobedient  child. 

" — And  finally  he  might  say,  'Good  work,  kid.'  " 

"Just  so,"  she  agreed.  "As  prosaic  as  though  I'd  said 
that  I  was  going  swimming  with  you.  And  Mrs.  Fair- 
leigh " 

"Would  burble  and  splash  sentiment  all  over  the 
place,"  I  concluded.  "You're  right;  we  had  better  keep 
it  a  secret." 

"I  knew  you'd  see  it,"  she  said  in  satisfaction. 

"But  the  romantic  part  of  it "  I  hesitated.  "Are 

there  any  hollow  trees  around  here?  To  hide  notes  in, 
you  know.  And  I'll  serenade  you,  on  dark  nights.  I  know 
'Bristol  Town'  and  'Hilo  Johnny.'  But  I'll  have  to  find 
some  one  to  play  the  mandolin.  There's  an  Italian  bar- 
ber over  town  who  plays  divinely,  has  big  eyes  and  flow- 
ing hair  and " 

"Don't  be  ridiculous,"  she  corrected  severely.  "If  you 
bring  any  Italian  barbers  around  I'll  play  the  hose  on 
both  of  you." 

"But  it  would  distract  Mrs.  Fairleigh,"  I  argued.  "She 
would  think  that  you  and  the  barber — surely  a  Count  in 
the  old  country " 

She  made  a  grimace  and  wrinkled  her  nose  at  me. 
"You're  making  fun  of  me.  One  poor  little  girl,  who  has 
always  been  frank  and  aboveboard  with  every  one,  de- 


FLOOD  TIDE  251 

mands  romance  and  you  give  her  barbers.  Don't  you  like 
me  any  better  than  that?" 

"I  do,  Laury,"  I  answered  seriously.  A  rapid  survey 
revealed  no  one  within  sight.  .  .  . 

"Clandestine  meeting  the  first,"  I  said  as  I  released  her. 

"It's  fun  this  way,  isn't  it?"  she  asked  breathlessly.  .  .  . 

I  was,  after  all,  the  conquering  lover.  But  still — you 
know  how  it  is  in  a  dream?  You  become  involved  in  an 
impossible  sequence  of  events,  a  sequence  which  still  seems 
sane  and  plausible  and  pleasant.  Yet  through  it  all  some 
wakeful  guardian  in  the  back  of  your  consciousness  tells 
you  that  presently  you  will  awake  and  come  back  again  to 
the  cold  and  ordered  world  of  realities.  Not  that  you 
want  to  come  back,  for  you  don't.  But  you  know  that 
you  will. 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 


THEN  Lauretta  discovered  a  doubt. 

"I'm  not  sure,"  she  said,  apropos  of  nothing.  She 
twirled  her  tennis  racquet  between  her  hands  and  gloomily 
watched  Larry  and  young  Peaslee  scuffle  on  the  float  be- 
low the  veranda. 

"Not  sure  of  what?"  I  asked.  "I'm  sure  of  one  thing 
— if  your  flirtation  with  young  Peaslee  goes  much  further 
I'll  do  something  desperate." 

"You  know  why  I'm  doing  it,"  and  she  smiled  encour- 
agingly on  Peaslee. 

"I  know;  you've  got  Larry  guessing.  But  I'm  jealous. 
I  thirst  for  his  gore." 

"He's  only  a  silly  young  boy,"  she  said  from  the  heights 
of  wisdom.  Peaslee  was  only  two  years  older  than  Lau- 
retta. But  she  seemed  pleased  at  my  jealousy. 

"You're  not  sure  of  what?"  I  came  back  to  her  first 
remark. 

"Whether  I'd  better  go  back  to  school  or  not.  .  .  . 
Up  the  river — like  Sing  Sing.  I  do  hate  to  be  bossed." 

"You'd  rather  take  your  orders  from  me?" 

"You?  Don't  you  worry  about  that.  .  .  .  But  do  you 
really  think  I'd  better?" 

"I  think  so." 

"So  do  I — really,"  she  admitted.  "I  wanted  to  find  out 
what  you  thought.  What  are  you  going  to  do  all  win- 
ter?" 

Larry  and  Peaslee  created  a  diversion  by  falling  over- 
\}'.  ard  in  their  scuffle  and  I  was  saved  the  necessity  of  a 
reply. 

The  question  troubled  me;  it  lurked  in  the  background 
252 


FLOOD  TIDE  253 

during  the  two  weeks  which  remained  before  her  depar- 
ture and  then  came  out  brazenly  and  demanded  answer. 
What  was  I  to  do  during  that  winter?  There  was  noth- 
ing new  in  prospect.  I  foresaw  a  winter  of  working  at 
matters  which  I  didn't  care  about;  a  forced  companion- 
ship with  uncongenial  men.  There  would  be  long  days 
at  the  offices  and  long  evenings  alone.  Marks  would  be 
glad  to  see  me  return  and  would  be  more  reluctant  than 
ever  to  let  me  go  again  in  the  spring.  I  would  become 
interested  in  some  problem  and  work  over  it  when  every 
instinct  told  me  that  my  work  was  useless.  I  foresaw 
a  succession  of  trade  dinners ;  I  shuddered  at  the  thought 
that  I  might  be  asked  to  speak.  I  would  resist  weakly, 
then  consent,  spend  a  miserable  week  with  the  hour  of  in- 
quisition drawing  nearer — and  then  either  be  called  out 
of  town  or  prevail  on  Marks  to  take  my  place.  I  knew; 
I  had  been  there  before.  And  I  knew  also  that  it  would 
be  even  worse  than  I  imagined  it. 

A  driving  northeaster  came  whooping  in  on  the  day 
that  Lauretta  left.  For  three  days  I  moped  around  like 
a  lost  soul,  alternating  in  dreary  monotony  between  the 
club  house  and  the  Shadow.  Across  the  rain-swept  gal- 
lery of  the  club  one  had  a  view  of  an  endless  procession 
of  approaching  whitecaps;  across  the  shining  decks  of 
the  Shadow  one  had  a  view  of  a  ceaseless  parade  of  reced- 
ing whitecaps.  It  was  all  highly  interesting.  There  was 
no  solace  in  the  calm,  crisp  September  weather  which 
followed  the  northeaster.  Every  one  had  left  or  was  about 
to  leave,  fleeing  as  though  from  a  pestilence.  The  season 
was  over.  Those  who  were  left  were  apologetic  and  de- 
fensive. The  yards  toward  town  sprouted  a  sudden 
growth  of  masts ;  what  craft  were  too  large  to  be  hauled 
out  for  the  winter  were  towed  to  safe  anchorages  and 
decked  over  for  the  winter. 

Still  I  maundered  and  moped  around,  unwilling  to  re- 
turn and  take  up  work  again  and  still  cursing  myself  for 
staying.  I  was  vaguely  dissatisfied  with  everything,  and, 


254  FLOOD  TIDE 

as  ever,  totally  unable  to  put  my  finger  on  the  cause  of 
my  trouble.  I  was  really  tired  of  this  "cream  puff"  diet. 
I  partly  appreciated  this  but  was  unwilling  to  admit  it. 
I  tried  to  muster  up  courage  to  face  the  winter  at  the 
offices,  persuaded  myself  that  I  had  succeeded,  and  went 
back.  I  stayed  for  an  hour — Marks  was  out — and  then 
fled  inglorious'ly  before  he  returned.  .  .  . 

Worthington  says  that  I  was  so  tired  of  loafing  that 
I  needed  a  vacation.     Perhaps  he  is  right.  .  .  . 


I  drifted  about  in  this  state  of  mind  for  over  a  week, 
like  a  boy  who  knows  that  he  is  hopelessly  late  for  school 
and  hopes  that  something  will  turn  up  that  will  prevent 
his  going  at  all  A  fire,  a  runaway  horse — anything.  I 
became  pathetically  eager  for  excuses  to  postpone  my  re- 
turn to  work.  I  started  canvases  which  I  knew  would 
never  be  finished.  The  Ledyards  left  suddenly  and  I  saw 
to  the  hauling  out  of  their  boat  and  was  glad  of  the 
chance.  That  killed  two  days.  I  seized  on  other  petty 
excuses  and  finally  began  to  manufacture  my  own.  I 
found  fault  with  the  grading  about  the  new  house  and 
planned  to  have  the  eastern  slope  altered.  I  even  engaged 
teamsters.  Then  I  met  Cadberry. 

Sudden  changes  in  society  bring  hitherto  unnoticed 
persons  to  the  surface.  I  hadn't  noticed  Cadberry  all 
summer,  neither  had  I  missed  him,  for  that  matter.  He 
nodded  an  abstracted  greeting  as  I  entered  the  deserted 
lounge  of  the  club,  then  resumed  the  reading  of  his  paper. 
Somehow  or  other  I  was  conscious  of  a  feeling  that  he 
shouldn't  be  there ;  only  after  we  had  read  in  silent  com- 
panionship for  an  hour  did  I  remember  his  exploration 
plans. 

"You're  back,  then,"  I  said,  as  he  folded  and  refolded 
his  paper,  making  ineffectual  efforts  to  straighten  it. 
Evidently  his  absence  had  failed  to  improve  his  temper. 


FLOOD  TIDE  255 

"Back?  Haven't  been  away,"  he  grunted  and  fixed 
me  with  a  cold  blue  eye. 

I  became  explanatory.  "You  were  going  exploring — 
Mexico,  was  it?  I've  missed  you." 

He  smiled  grayly.  "I  suspect  that  you  have  been  busy 
with  other  matters.  I've  been  here  all  summer — summer's 
no  time  for  tropical  exploration."  His  manner  added, 
"Any  fool  would  know  that." 

But  I  was  persistent.  "Then  this  winter "  I  left 

the  thread  hanging  in  the  air;  he  plucked  at  it  as  one 
plucks  at  an  irritating  spider  web. 

"Sabbatical  year,"  he  said  shortly.  "Grahame  takes 
the  department.  And  Mexico  is  off  the  map,  as  far  as  I'm 
concerned." 

I  caught  the  headlines  of  his  paper — something  about 
the  Madero-Huerta  squabble,  if  I  remember  rightly. 

"I  know,"  I  said  sympathetically.  "The  pot's  always 
boiling  down  there,  isn't  it  ?  What  were  you  planning  this 
time?  Aztec  stuff,  or —  I  made  a  prodigious  leap 

of  memory  " — some  of  the  Toltec  ruins?  I  know  that 
they're  thickly  scattered  all  over  the  place." 

"Not  much  left  besides  ruins  in  Mexico  in  a  few  years," 
he  said  with  a  show  of  interest.  "No,  not  Toltec — Mayan. 
.  .  .  But  I  had  no  idea  that  you  were  interested  in  that." 

"I  excavated  a  ruin  once,"  I  answered,  with  fond  mem- 
ories of  Brown  Brothers.  "Tell  me  about  it — unless  you've 
something  else  to  do." 

"Do?"  he  echoed.  "I'm  stuck  here  for  the  winter.  But 
if  you're  really  interested ! 

"I  am,"  I  assured  him.  I  was  in  a  state  of  mind  where 
anything  is  interesting. 

"Why  then "  he  said,  and  cleared  his  throat  in  a 

class  room  manner  which  took  me  back  fifteen  years. 

He  started  by  explaining  in  words  of  one  syllable  just 
what  he  had  intended  to  search  for — he  adopted  an  air  of 
apology  as  he  talked,  and  "as  you  know,"  answered  by  a 
nod  from  me,  was  a  frequent  punctuation  of  his  discourse. 


256  FLOOD  TIDE 


_ 

The  Mayan  race,  it  seemed,  had  once  occupied  the  region 
about  Yucatan  ;  they  had  built  cities  without  number,  pal- 
aces, temples,  pyramids.  Then,  going  the  way  of  all  flesh, 
they  had  left  the  cities  behind.  In  the  course  of  time  the 
cities  had  become  ruins.  And  ruins  were  Cadberry's  meat. 

"They  built  Palenque,  Mitla,  Copan,"  he  explained. 
"The  wilderness  is  full  of  them  —  cities  which  were  ruins 
when  Cortez  landed,  cities  contemporaneous  with  Car- 
thage, the  cradles  of  a  vast  and  vanished  civilization." 

"Ah  !"  I  said  intelligently.  I  had  been  in  Baltimore  af- 
ter the  fire,  and  I  am  afraid  that  my  ideas  of  ruined  cities 
were  not  exactly  those  which  Cadberry  intended  to  pro- 
duce. I  found  later  that  a  true  ruined  city  is  nothing 
more  than  occasional  and  unexpected  little  hills  and 
mounds  and  embankments,  mixed  with  broken  pottery  and 
shattered  stone. 

He  went  on  and  became  more  technical  as  he  proceeded. 
He  grew  lyrical;  liquid  names  filled  with  soft  sibilants 
tumbled  in  procession  from  his  tongue.  He  made  mention 
of  those  who  had  already  explored  this  Mayan  country 
—  Stephens,  Waldeck,  Dupaix  and  the  others  ;  my  in- 
terest grew  as  he  went  on.  In  broad,  vivid  strokes  he 
sketched  the  country;  interminable  forests,  rivers  among 
great  hills  and  the  ruins  of  a  great  past  scattered  through 
it  all  with  a  prodigal  hand.  One  of  my  boyhood  inspira- 
tions had  been  Du  Chaillu's  Gorilla  Country  and  an  ac- 
count of  Stanley's  search  for  Livingstone;  I  raked  to- 
gether what  fragments  of  memory  I  could  and  managed 
to  make  a  decent  show  of  intelligence. 

"But  you  say  that  these  places  have  already  been  ex- 
plored," I  objected. 

"Not  all,"  he  responded,  and  pulled  down  the  great 
coast  chart  on  the  wall.  He  traced  a  river  with  a  slender 
forefinger.  "Along  here  are  the  known  ruins,  behind  Ta- 
basco." 

"Hot  place,"  I  jested  feebly. 


FLOOD  TIDE  257 

"No-o,"  he  considered  soberly,  "save  in  the  summer 
months,  you  know." 

He  went  on  to  outline  his  abandoned  plans,  forgetting 
for  the  moment  that  they  were  abandoned.  He  indicated 
a  great  branching  river,  entering  the  Gulf  of  Campeche 
at  Frontera ;  along  the  left  branch  were  the  known  ruins. 
He  explained  that  one  obtained  river  boats  and  guides 
at  San  Juan  Bautista — rather  a  common  excursion,  I 
gathered  from  his  tone.  But  along  the  other  branch,  lead- 
ing off  to  the  eastward — ah !  He  sighed  and  realized  that 
he  talked  of  impossibilities. 

"Somewhere  in  there,"  he  said  wistfully,  "lies  the  solu- 
tion of  this  entire  Mayan  problem.  This  river,  the  Usu- 
macinta,  leads  off  into  the  heart  of  an  unknown  region — 
archeologically — unexplored,  a  virgin  field.  Along  the 
affluents  of  the  Usumacinta  there  lies — no  one  knows  what. 
They  lead  back — into  the  hills.  .  .  .  There  is  a  tradition 
of  a  great  aboriginal  city ;  it  has  been  seen  at  times.  From 
a  distance.  .  .  .  Gleaming  walls.  .  .  .  You  don't  know 
how  such  things  appeal  to  me,  Coffin." 

"I  think  I  know,"  I  answered.  I  had  once  planned  to 
explore  the  upper  Amazon — but  Dick  wouldn't  go.  "And 
you  had  planned  ?" 

"It's  no  use  now,"  he  said  wearily.  "These  damnable 
tupenny  revolutions!  The  country's  not  safe,  you  know. 
I  had  planned  to  have  a  go  at  that  region,  engage  boats 
at  Frontera,  go  as  far  as  possible — bah !" 

He  pulled  angrily  at  the  map  and  it  snapped  up  on  its 
rollers  with  a  clatter.  "I've  planned  all  summer,"  he  went 
on,  "hoping  that  this  trouble  would  be  over.  But  it  seems 
to  grow  worse.  .  .  .  I'm  not  a  British  citizen  now — only 
a  Gringo.  I'd  have  a  try  at  it  even  now,  but  Mrs.  Cad- 
berry " 

I  understood.  "But  let's  have  another  look  at  the  map. 
Why  not  try  it  from  Belize?  Or  Guatemala?  Isn't  that 
nearer?" 

"In  actual  miles — yes.     But  impossible.     There  are  no 


258  FLOOD  TIDE 

streams — no  roads.  No.  The  only  way  is  up  river. 
That  or  none." 

He  subsided  into  disgruntled  silence.  I  thought.  The 
first  faint  glimmerings  of  a  plan  became  apparent  to  me. 

"You'd  need  a  launch,"  I  considered.  "Something  on 
the  whaleboat  plan,  shallow  draught  and  yet  a  good  car- 
rier. I  think  JEvans  has  something  on  that  line.  And 
then  to  get  there — where  was  it?  Frontera?  Why  not 
the  Shadow?" 

"Eh?"  He  looked  up  and  removed  his  glasses  with  a 
fumbling  hand. 

"Why  not  the  Shadow?"  I  repeated.  "We  could  run  up 
river  beyond  your  town  and  then  start.  Send  the  Shadow 
out  to  either  Havana  or  Kingston.  Or  cache  her  some- 
where. Go  up  river  as  far  as  we  could,  then  come  back. 
Well?" 

He  squinted  at  me  nervously.     "You  mean  it?" 

"I'm  about  due  for  a  sabbatical  year  myself,"  I  an- 
swered. 


From  that  moment  I  was  completely  in  Cadberry's  toils. 
I  remember  that  he  did  a  little  war  dance  of  joy  about 
the  lounge  and  then  tore  off  to  New  Haven  to  crow  over 
Grahame  and  get  together  what  things  he  would  need.  He 
came  back  the  next  day;  we  took  the  Shadow  down  to 
New  York,  laid  up  at  a  smelly  pier  on  the  East  River  and 
started  a  whirlwind  campaign  of  preparation. 

Cadberry  surprised  me.  He  became  a  small  dynamo 
of  energy,  deciding  matters  in  a  summary  manner  of 
which  I  had  never  believed  him  capable.  I  became  a  mere 
supernumerary;  a  person  who  was  perhaps  a  necessary 
part  of  the  general  scheme  of  things  but  whose  sugges- 
tions were  sometimes  absurd  and  sometimes  childish  but 
never  well  made.  My  idea  of  preparation  was  to  lay  in 
a  stock  of  calico  and  beads;  "to  trade  with  the  natives," 


FLOOD  TIDE  259 

I  explained  vaguely.  Kavenaugh  had  no  suggestions  be- 
yond plenty  of  tobacco  and  an  extra  pair  of  boots.  We 
were  both  shoved  one  side  without  ceremony.  We  were 
trusted  to  a  certain  extent,  however;  Cadberry  allowed 
us  to  open  the  cases  as  they  came  down  the  dock. 

Within  a  week  we  were  fully  prepared  and  ready  to 
move  on.  Evans  remodeled  a  launch  that  he  had  in  stock 
and  made  it  suitable  for  our  purposes.  We  shipped  extra 
gasoline  tanks  and  stores.  It  was  a  week  of  hurry  and 
bustle,  with  Cadberry  dominating  the  whole,  his  pockets 
bulging  with  odds  and  ends,  a  greasy  old  cap  of  Kave- 
naugh's  on  the  back  of  his  head  and  eternally  engaged 
in  a  fumbling  conflict  with  his  glasses. 

Stowell  came  down,  criticized  us  openly,  and  envied  us 
in  secret. 

"All  very  complete,"  he  said,  surveying  our  prepara- 
tions. "I  see  only  one  thing  wrong." 

"And  that?" 

"You've  no  business  going.  In  fact,  there's  every  rea- 
son why  you  shouldn't  go." 

"For  example?" 

He  hesitated  oddly.  "The  Stores  is  too  big  a  thing  for 
one  man  to  swing.  And  you  know  it,"  he  said  finally.  "If 
you  want  a  change  of  work — well,  our  offer  is  still  open." 

I  was  sulkily  silent. 

"Go  ahead,  then,"  he  sighed,  and  switched  to  practical 
advice  on  the  subject  of  woolen  socks. 

Marks  was  even  worse.     He  argued. 

"Look  here,"  he  exploded,  as  I  appeared.  "When  you 
coming  in?" 

"When  I  get  back." 

He  stared.    "Back?    From  where?" 

I  told  him.  Then  a  whirlwind  of  questions — chiefly 
"Why?" 

"Because  I  want  to,"  I  said  doggedly. 

"All  right,  all  right.  Stay  as  long  as  you  want.  Stay 
forever."  I  marched  out,  secretly  pleased  at  getting  off 


260  FLOOD  TIDE 

so  easily.  But  later  Marks  came  down  to  the  Shadow 
and  was  unexpectedly  agreeable.  I  was  ashamed  of  myself 
and  tried  to  explain. 

"No  matter,"  he  said  with  an  expansive  wave.  "I 
wouldn't  understand,  anyway.  Guess  I  can  get  along 
alone — I've  had  practice  enough.  But  one  thing;  I'm 
going  ahead.  I've  got  plans.  No  use  holding  up  every- 
thing because  of  your  crazy  ideas." 

"Go  as  far  as  you  like,"  I  assented. 

"I  will,"  he  promised. 

And,  to  do  him  justice,  he  did.  .  .  . 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  week  I  found  time  to  run 
up  river  and  see  Lauretta.  'I  had  written  her  an  account 
of  our  project,  and,  as  I  had  expected,  she  also  disap- 
proved of  the  entire  affair.  We  walked — I  have  an  im- 
pression of  towers  in  the  background  and  drifts  of  rust- 
ling leaves  underfoot — and  discussed  the  matter  in  a 
fragmentary  fashion. 

"What  I  don't  like,"  she  explained,  "is  that  I  can't 
go." 

Obviously  she  couldn't. 

"And  I  can't  even  write  to  you,"  she  complained  fi- 
nally. But  her  principal  objection  was  that  she  was  go- 
ing to  miss  something. 


I  give  you  no  more  than  a  brief  outline  of  that  winter 
and  spring;  Cadberry  has  already  treated  it  fully  in  his 
book;  I  feel  that  it  is  his  story  and  not  mine.  This  is 
really  the  second  book  in  which  I  have  figured,  you  see, 
although  in  Cadberry's  I  play  but  a  small  and  unimpor- 
tant part.  My  name  appears  once  in  the  preface  and  twice 
in  the  main  portion  of  his  volume.  Mention  is  made  of 
my  discovery  of  the  colossal  statue  of  Votan,  the  myth- 
ical founder  of  the  Mayan  race;  happily  Cadberry  knew 
nothing  of  the  abject  feeling  of  terror  which  came  over  me 


FLOOD  TIDE  261 

as  I  became  aware  of  old  Votan  leering  most  horribly 
above  me  in  the  dimness  of  the  jungle,  leaning  drunkenly 
aslant  against  a  great  tree.  One  of  the  illustrations  in 
Cadberry's  book  shows  Kavenaugh  and  myself,  sweat 
stained  and  bearded,  standing  on  either  side  of  the  hid- 
eously carved  stone. 

There  was  an  absurdly  piratic  tone  about  the  whole 
venture,  from  the  time  we  stole  around  Sandy  Hook  in  the 
twilight  until  we  returned  the  next  June.  Cadberry  stayed 
below,  heroically  alternating  between  his  notebooks  and 
a  basin,  until  we  passed  Hatteras.  We  made  but  one  call 
on  the  way  down,  to  renew  our  supply  of  gasoline,  and 
then,  skirting  the  Florida  Keys,  we  struck  out  into  the 
Gulf. 

We  took  our  time  crossing  the  Gulf,  changing  our 
course  frequently  as  distant  thumb-prints  of  smoke  blurred 
the  taut  horizon.  We  had  no  desire  for  unsolicited  pub- 
licity. We  unshipped  the  Shadow's  masts,  lashed  them 
on  deck,  and  went  over  the  entire  superstructure  with  a 
coat  of  dull  green.  Bergson  had  argued  us  into  accept- 
ing the  plan  which  we  had  considered  dubiously. 

"You  find  a  creek,  a  bayou,  somewhere,"  he  said,  "and 
run  her  in.  I  will  stay.  Otherwise — if  I  dake  her  to 
Havana — how  should  I  know  when  to  return.  And  there 
would  be  comblications — inevidably." 

We  spent  an  anxious  three  days  while  he  and  Kave- 
naugh went  up  river  in  the  tender  looking  for  a  suitable 
place  of  concealment ;  during  the  day  we  stood  out  beyond 
sight  of  land,  and  at  night  crept  in  close  to  the  low  shore 
and  showed  lights.  They  came  aboard  the  third  night, 
and  under  their  guidance  we  stole  silently  up  the  river, 
hugging  the  opposite  shore  as  we  passed  Frontera  and 
barely  avoiding  a  collision  with  a  native  boat  as  we  swung 
out  into  midstream  again.  Once  we  hung  on  a  sandbar, 
but  the  wash  of  the  river  freed  us  and  we  went  on.  We 
reached  the  branching  of  the  river  and  the  stars  wheeled 
overhead  as  we  bore  to  the  left.  Toward  morning  we 


262  FLOOD  TIDE 

pumped  out  the  last  of  the  water  ballast  and  headed  into 
the  narrow  channel  which  Kavenaugh  had  discovered. 
A  sluggish  stream,  it  meandered  about  among  the  over- 
hanging trees;  as  we  went  on  hanging  vines  dragged 
slowly  across  the  deck  and  fell  in  festoons  behind  us.  In 
the  dim  morning  light  it  was  like  sailing  through  the  heart 
of  the  forest  6n  a  heavy  dew.  Finally  the  channel  led 
into  a  shallow,  green-walled  opening  among  the  trees  and 
in  a  subsidiary  channel  leading  from  this  we  hid  the 
Shadow,  with  her  bow  wedged  between  two  trees  and  a 
heavy  curtain  of  creepers  veiling  her  stern. 

For  two  months  we  struggled  upstream  in  the  launch, 
traveling  principally  by  night  until  we  left  the  flat  lower 
reaches  of  the  river  and  then  pushing  on  more  boldly. 
We  met  other  travelers,  a  mysterious  German  connected 
with  chicle,  a  native  boat  loaded  with  skins,  a  drive  of 
mahogany  logs,  and  for  three  days  we  traveled  in  com- 
pany with  a  rubber  prospector  who  spoke  wistfully  and 
feelingly  of  Cleveland-Sixth-City.  Cadberry  resurrected 
his  English  accent  and  was  vaguely  representative  of  a 
London  rubber  company.  We  parted  company  at  last, 
laden  with  messages  and  directions  to  other  rubber  seek- 
ers further  upstream — valuable  information,  for  we  took 
pains  to  avoid  them.  Beyond  Santa  Rosa  we  left  the 
Usumacinta,  turned  into  the  Rio  de  la  Pasion,  and  went 
on  through  fast  narrowing  banks  of  greenery  into  the 
heart  of  the  unnamed  hills. 

The  Rio  de  la  Pasion  proved  a  disappointment.  I  may 
be  wrong,  but  it  is  my  belief  that  Cadberry  had  expected 
to  find  it  a  New  World  Rhine,  with  ruined  battlements 
and  towers  frowning  down  on  every  turn.  That,  at  least, 
was  my  anticipation.  But  whatever  he  expected,  we  found 
nothing.  We  loitered  along,  exploring  every  side  stream, 
making  fruitless  excursions  back  from  the  stream,  and 
finding  nothing.  Cadberry  grew  daily  more  irritable. 
Our  sole  discovery  was  an  abandoned  rubber  camp  which 
classed  as  a  ruin  but  was  scarcely  of  sufficient  antiquity 


FLOOD  TIDE  263 

to  interest  Cadberry.  This  was  a  few  miles  below  the 
second  rapids — we  had  ascended  the  first  series  only  after 
three  days'  killing  labor.  The  second  series  proved  im- 
passable for  our  heavy  launch. 


We  sat  on  the  water-worn  rocks,  the  launch  pulled  out 
on  a  half  moon  of  yellow  sand  below  us,  our  ears  filled 
with  the  strident  roar  of  the  falls.  Cadberry  broke  his 
seventh  pair  of  glasses  and  swore  as  the  fragments  tinkled 
and  glittered  to  the  sand  below. 

"Well?"  I  asked. 

"I  hate  to  turn  back,"  he  said  fretfully  and  was  silent 
for  a  moment.  "Why  not  strike  out  cross  country — 
circle  around  and  come  back?  We've  found  nothing." 

"How  far?" 

"Until  we  do  find  something,"  he  squeaked  above  the 
tumult  of  falling  water.  "Are  you  on?" 

"If  Kav  and  Karl  and  John  agree,"  I  shouted  back. 

He  strode  off,  gesticulating  to  himself,  toward  the 
three  men  sprawled  about  the  fire  on  the  beach.  Kave- 
naugh  had  fallen  overboard  that  morning  and  made  a 
weird  figure,  clothed  in  a  tattered  and  flapping  undershirt. 
I  sat  and  watched  the  circling  clots  of  yellow  foam  in  the 
pool  below.  We  couldn't  very  well  go  back  empty  handed. 

VI 

From  that  point  on  we  had  one  unending  struggle  with 
the  passive  resistance  of  the  wilderness,  over  ranges, 
through  valleys  deep  in  tangled  underbrush  and  primeval 
forests,  across  streams  and  past  lakes  hidden  deep  in 
abrupt  valleys. 

Whatever  taste  I  possessed  for  the  romance  of  explo- 
ration was  glutted.  Certain  impressions  are  burned  deep 
in  my  memory — of  "boots — boots — boots — boots — movin' 


264  FLOOD  TIDE 

up  and  down  again";  of  stumbling  on  and  watching  the 
sweat  stains  on  Karl's  back  merge  and  blend  and  blot  to- 
gether; of  pack-straps  cutting  into  my  own  back  and 
shoulders  until  sensation  vanished  in  a  blissful  numbness. 
Exploration !  I  could  have  got  the  same  effect  by  carry- 
ing a  truck  load  of  mixed  goods  through  a  mosquito  in- 
fested blueberry  swamp  with  scattered  ridges  of  loose 
stone  to  break  the  heat-drenched  monotony. 

We  found  outcroppings  of  coal  and  metal;  for  nearly 
a  month  we  traveled  in  sight  of  one  vast  mountain  of 
iron  ore,  rearing  rusty  shoulders  above  its  cloak  of  green. 
At  the  foot  of  this  mountain,  or  rather  on  its  western 
slope,  lies  the  mystical,  mythical  city  whose  existence  Cad- 
berry  had  doubted.  And  rightly,  too,  for  instead  of  a 
city  we  found  a  broad,  filmy  waterfall,  whose  gleaming 
in  the  sun  might  well  be  mistaken  for  the  glisten  of  silver 
walls  in  the  blue  distance.  It  was  a  great  disappointment 
to  Kavenaugh;  he  had  taken  the  distant  murmur  of  the 
falls  for  the  roar  of  a  great  city  and  had  entertained 
visions  of  bottled  beer. 

But  we  found  cities — three  of  them — as  Cadberry  says 
at  great  length.  Quite  properly,  he  named  them  after 
Mayan  gods ;  Kavenaugh,  more  rationally  and  perhaps 
with  memories  of  Mark  Twain,  called  them  Jacksonville, 
West  Jacksonville,  and  Jacksonville  Junction.  As  cities 
they  were  lamentable  failures ;  as  ruins  they  lacked  noth- 
ing. Cadberry  dug  and  excavated  and  measured  the  un- 
sightly heaps  and  mounds  and  pyramids  to  his  heart's 
content.  My  chief  recollections  of  this  most  successful 
part  of  our  trip  are  connected  with  the  cenote  which  we 
found  at  Jacksonville,  a  shaft  leading  down  among  the 
ruins  by  dim,  worn  steps  to  an  underground  pool,  dim, 
cool  and  soul-satisfying. 

Near  West  Jacksonville  we  found  the  statue  of 
Votan;  we  stayed  at  Jacksonville  Junction  nearly  two 
months. 


FLOOD  TIDE  265 


vn 

We  had  spent  a  week  about  the  Junction,  prying  into 
the  ruins  and  making  little  side  excursions;  a  week  of 
torrential  showers,  marching  one  on  the  heels  of  the 
other,  with  flashes  of  vivid  sunshine  between.  We  alter- 
nated between  complete  wetness  and  soggy  steaminess. 
Karl  and  John  played  cards  and  swore  that  they  had 
rather  be  drowned  at  sea  than  on  land.  Kavenaugh  and 
I  found  our  only  comfort  in  the  thought  that  further 
discomfort  was  impossible.  Cadberry  was  so  engrossed 
in  making  maps  and  taking  notes  that  nothing  short  of 
a  cloudburst  would  have  attracted  his  attention.  Through 
rain  and  through  sunshine  I  remember  his  twinkling  little 
legs  trotting  about,  for  all  the  world  like  a  busy  little 
fox  terrier  in  a  bone  yard. 

We  rested  at  noon  one  day,  between  showers,  beside  a 
pool  with  broad  water  lilies  starring  its  surface;  myster- 
ious subsurface  movements  set  the  broad  leaves  rocking 
and  the  rushes  nodding  and  swaying  as  though  moved 
by  some  breeze  imperceptible  to  our  grosser  senses.  There 
was  an  elusive  glimpse  of  the  great  red-flanked  mountain 
in  the  misty  background;  in  the  middle  distance  Kave- 
naugh fried  bacon  and  an  intermittent  crackle  and  rustle 
told  of  Karl  seeking  dry  wood  for  the  fire.  I  sniff,  and 
smell  again  the  queer  blend  of  tropical  rankness  and  ap- 
petizing bacon. 

Cadberry  elucidated  some  abstruse  theory  of  his — some 
connection  which  he  had  found  between  Eastern  and 
Western  theology.  I  rested  drowsily  and  listened  to  his 
monologue. 

"  'Just  and  true  is  the  Wheel,  swerving  not  a  hair,'  "  he 
said  with  an  air  of  quotation.  "  'Swerving  not  a  hair.' " 

"Mayan?"  I  queried. 

"Thibetan.  .  .  .  Yes.  .  .  .  Not  a  bad  idea.  Chris- 
tianity has  much  the  same  idea — 'as  ye  measure.'  Univer- 
sal, spontaneous,  perhaps,  rather  than  showing  a  connec- 


266  FLOOD  TIDE 

tion.  In  everything — coming  back — reverting  to  type. 
Wilderness — cultivation — wilderness  again.  'Just  and 
true.'  Hmmmm." 

The  outlines  of  a  lecture  shaped  themselves  in  discon- 
nected fragments ;  he  fumbled  for  the  little  red  notebook. 
He  seemed  unduly  excited  over  his  discovery;  a  tiny  red 
spot  burned  in  either  cheek. 

"The  cause  is  a  result — the  result,  a  cause,"  he  went 
on,  scratching  notes.  "The  circles — the  spheres.  Circles." 

"Cubist  art,"  I  reminded  him. 

There  was  a  whir  of  wings  overhead  and  a  minor  shower 
of  drops  pattered  on  the  leaves  of  his  book.  He  stared 
at  the  crinkling  blots. 

"D-dammit!"  he  said  querulously,  and  poked  at  them 
with  his  finger.  "They're  not  circles ;  they  should  be 
...  all  broken."  He  stared  for  a  moment,  the  red  flush 
burned  higher  on  his  cheeks  and  the  book  slid  rustling 
down  into  the  grass. 

"Ah!"  he  said  finally. 

I  followed  his  intent  gaze  out  over  the  little  pool ;  a  fish 
had  leaped  and  a  slow  circular  spread  of  ripples  broke 
the  clear  surface. 

He  rose  slowly,  staggered,  caught  his  balance,  and 
started  down  the  slope  to  the  pool,  breaking  into  a  sham- 
bling trot  as  the  bank  fell  away  more  rapidly.  I  watched 
him  idly,  expecting  him  to  stop  at  the  edge;  he  went  on, 
and  was  knee  deep  before  I  realized  that  something  out 
of  the  ordinary  was  happening. 

"Cadberry!"  I  shouted.     "You  fool!" 

His  arms  spread  wide  and  waved  in  flapping  circles  as 
the  sludgy  bottom  caught  at  his  feet;  he  gesticulated 
wildly  as  he  waded  deeper;  finally  his  momentum  toppled 
him  over  and  he  disappeared  in  a  wild  splashing  and  wav- 
ing of  weed  tangled  legs. 

I  shouted  again  and  had  an  impression  of  Kavenaugh 
dropping  his  bacon  in  the  fire  and  coming  toward  me. 
I  had  the  start  of  him ;  I  remember  shifting  my  stride  as 


FLOOD  TIDE  267 

I  ran,  calculating  the  distance  to  the  edge  and  praying 
for  a  solid  take-off.  "Dead  trees,"  I  thought,  and  had 
a  flashing  vision  of  spitting  myself  on  a  sunken  branch. 
I  remember  striking  the  water  in  a  long  flat  dive  and 
coming  up  abruptly  with  the  gagging  taste  of  dead  and 
rotting  vegetation  in  my  throat.  I  struck  out  after 
Cadberry  and  found  boots  and  puttees  a  poor  swimming 
costume. 

He  was  swimming  blindly  when  I  overtook  him,  his 
head  raised  high  and  his  threshing  arms  beating  the  water 
into  an  amber  froth.  He  fought  weakly  and  scratchily, 
like  a  blind  kitten,  as  I  grappled  with  him  from  behind; 
I  managed  to  tow  him  within  reach  of  Kavenaugh,  stand- 
ing waist  deep  among  the  rushes,  and  between  us  we  car- 
ried him  up  the  bank. 

"The  fever,"  puffed  Kavenaugh,  looking  down  on  Cad- 
berry's  flushed  and  streaming  face.  He  shouted  for 
Karl;  an  answering  hail  and  a  crackle  of  branches  re- 
sponded. "He  was  fair  rotten  with  it  and  never  yipped. 
All  in  a  heap.  .  .  .  Back  to  camp  as  quick  as  God'll 
let  us." 

We  got  him  back,  finally,  on  an  improvised  stretcher, 
babbling  thickly  of  circles  and  planetary  systems  and 
the  potter's  wheel,  clutching  weakly  at  the  dripping  un- 
derbrush as  we  forced  our  way  along.  He  had  one  mo- 
ment of  lucidity. 

"Got  it  bad,"  he  croaked,  fixing  me  with  a  bright  blue 
eye.  "Felt  it  coming — never  say  die.  It  runs  in  circles, 
Coff;  in  three-day  cycles — had  it  before."  He  drifted 
off  into  inarticulate  mutterings.  "I'll  pull  through,"  he 
said  suddenly.  .  .  . 

I  was  far  from  confident;  Cadberry  had  resisted  for 
so  long,  had  gone  on  working  when  he  should  have  gone 
to  bed,  that  the  disease  attacked  him  with  doubled  vigor 
when  he  finally  gave  in.  Kavenaugh  and  I  tried  every 
remedy  of  which  we  had  ever  heard ;  among  them  we  must 
have  found  the  right  one — either  that  or  Cadberry's  con- 


268  FLOOD  TIDE 

stitution  triumphed  over  both  disease  and  our  blunder- 
ing doctoring.  He  slid  down  hill  for  a  time,  hesitated, 
and  then  started  slowly  to  recover.  .  .  . 


vm 

The  long  nights  among  the  ruins  of  Jacksonville  Junc- 
tion stand  out  clearest  of  all  my  memories  of  that  time. 
We  had  camped  in  the  very  midst  of  the  ruins,  in  what 
Cadberry  has  indicated  on  his  map  as  "Casa  Number 
Three,"  the  most  complete  ruin  which  we  had  found — 
or  rather  the  most  incomplete,  for  it  was  the  only  one 
with  even  a  vestige  of  walls.  It  was  a  vast  ruin  of  a  pal- 
ace, roofless,  and  with  great  trees  thrusting  up  above  the 
low  walls.  I  remember  the  gleam  of  the  firelight  through 
the  shattered  doorway  as  I  sat  outside;  there  was  an  occa- 
sional sound  from  Cadberry,  in  his  hammock  under  the 
rough  shelter  which  we  had  constructed  between  the  tree 
trunks;  I  recall  the  silver  gleam  of  the  moonlight  on  the 
fantastic  carving  of  the  great  fa9ade,  the  bushes  growing 
in  crevices  and  casting  dusky  hieroglyphic  shadows  over 
the  carven  stone.  And  all  about  was  that  silence  of  the 
forest  which  is  not  a  silence  at  all,  but  a  calm  filled  with 
rustlings  and  murmurs  of  unseen  life. 

This  scene  is  impressed  on  my  memory  by  repetition; 
night  after  night  I  sat  there  or  walked  up  and  down, 
smoking  and  thinking.  With  the  suspension  of  physical 
activity  came  a  recrudescence  of  my  old  self-questioning. 
I  stood  apart,  and  criticized  myself  for  the  first  time  in 
years.  I  was  isolated,  cut  off  from  everything  which 
had  been  my  life.  Between  the  present  and  the  careless, 
self-indulgent  life  about  the  Arrowrock  there  was  an 
immeasurable  interval.  All  that  seemed  years  away.  Busi- 
ness, The  Stores,  Marks — all  were  figures  of  another  life, 
incredibly  remote  and  distant.  I  contrasted,  weighed 
one  against  the  other,  and  finally  came  to  some  sort  of  a 
decision. 


FLOOD  TIDE  269 

I  came  to  see  that  in  breaking  off  and  running  away 
from  business  I  had  really  tried  to  escape  from  myself, 
not  from  The  Stores  and  its  accompaniment  of  petty 
and  narrowing  vexations.  I  had  sought  refuge  in  being 
different;  my  real  refuge  lay  in  becoming  like  others. 
Being  different  was  the  cause,  not  the  cure,  of  my  trou- 
ble. .  .  . 

I  wonder  now  how  much  Lauretta  had  to  do  with  this 
decision.  I  know  that  by  subtle  gradations  she  came  to 
occupy  more  and  more  of  my  thoughts.  She  became  daily 
more  desirable.  I  began  to  imagine  things,  after  my  usual 
fashion ;  to  remember  and  build  up  possibilities  on 
what  I  remembered.  For  the  first  time  I  had  no  doubts 
of  my  love  for  her.  It  was  as  sincere  and  real  an  emo- 
tion as  any  I  -have  ever  experienced.  I  wanted  with  all 
my  soul  to  go  back,  and  be  married,  and  call  the  brake- 
man  on  the  8.17  by  his  first  name.  Every  one  whose  way 
differs  at  all  from  the  ordinary  feels  at  times  this  envy 
of  the  common  lot,  this  desire  to  be  ordinary  and  hum- 
drum— and  contented.  .  .  . 

I  would  go  back,  I  concluded.  No  more  running  away 
from  work,  shirking  responsibility,  clutching  at  trifles. 
I  had  taken  that  course  long  enough.  Self-indulgence 
breeds  self-contempt.  I  became  articulate. 

"You  idiot!"  I  accused  myself,  with  the  steady  stars 
and  the  sibilant  forest  as  witnesses.  "This  running  about 
— trying  to  escape  yourself ! 

"Fussing  around.  .  .  .  Inconsequential  little  voyages 
from  nowhere  to  nowhere ;  persuading  yourself  that  you're 
doing  something.  And  doing  nothing.  .  .  .  Doddering — 
a  combination  of  child  and  old  man.  .  .  .  Sand  castles. 

"Simply  drifting — down  here  making  a  pack-beast  of 
yourself.  And  it's  not  even  fun;  just  killing  time.  Let- 
ting Marks  do  it  all.  And  you  had  dreams  once." 

Then  a  pause  in  my  pacing  up  and  down.  I  began  to 
dream  again,  to  futurize.  I  remembered  Marks  and  his 
plans,  wondered  faintly  what  they  were  and  hoped  that 


270  FLOOD  TIDE 

he  wouldn't  make  too  great  an  ass  of  himself.  I  planned 
for  myself — later  I  captured  Cadberry's  red  notebook 
and  jotted  them  down;  they  puzzled  him  greatly  when 
he  came  to  decipher  his  notes.  With  a  quickened  interest 
I  thought  of  Stowell  and  his  persistent  efforts  to  interest 
me  in  his  work. 

"Something  in  it,"  I  concluded.  "At  least  that  wouldn't 
be  pandering  to  yourself." 

IX 

Cadberry  was  soon  strong  enough  to  move — these  wiry 
little  wisps  of  men  are  hard  to  kill — and  we  set  out  north- 
ward in  easy  stages.  As  near  as  we  could  determine  by 
the  map  we  were  midway  between  the  second  rapids  and 
Flores.  We  went  on ;  anything  was  better  than  a  return. 
Late  in  April  we  reached  Lake  Peten  Oritza,  making  the 
final  stages  of  the  journey  with  Cadberry  in  a  crawling 
bullock  cart,  hired  at  the  first  village  we  entered.  We 
went  winding  down  through  the  mountains,  the  cart  lurch- 
ing and  complaining  over  the  gullies  and  bowlder  strewn 
torrent  beds — called  roads  only  by  the  utmost  stretch 
of  the  imagination — and  a  brown  skinned  mestizo,  all 
smile  and  hat  brim,  driving  the  oxen. 

"Scandalous,  I  call  him,"  said  Kavenaugh.  "Like  a 
bloody  Chink,  with  his  shirt  tail  outside  his  panties." 

At  Flores — a  little  jewel  of  a  town,  set  on  an  island 
in  the  lake — we  lodged  at  a  house  which  the  cure  found 
for  us,  a  house  with  blank  walls  facing  the  street,  a  great 
grill  of  rusty  iron  work  in  the  dim  arch  of  the  gate  and 
a  little  walled  garden  fronting  on  the  lake.  Father  Jose 
also  found  us  a  cook,  a  voluble  old  soul  with  two  teeth 
and  the  skill  of  an  angelic  alchemist.  We  ate  and  rested 
and  shaved  every  day  and  gradually  came  to  feel  almost 
civilized  again.  Cadberry  went  through  his  convalescence 
in  a  great  square  dusky  room  above  stairs,  a  room  with 
shaded  windows  framing  the  distant  panorama  of  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  271 

mountains  and  the  reflected  light  of  the  lake  shimmering 
on  the  ceiling.  He  was  weaker  than  he  cared  to  admit. 

But  he  found  a  companion  soul  in  Father  Jose  and 
became  reconciled  to  the  slow  mending  process.  The  cure 
was  an  authority  on  Mayan  legends  and  archeology;  he 
filled  out  the  gaps  in  Cadberry's  information  and  in  re- 
turn received  a  broader  view  of  the  entire  subject.  He 
and  Cadberry  made  a  queer  pair,  the  cure  with  his  great 
bony  shoulders  and  rough  hewn  Yankee  face,  and  Cad- 
berry,  white  beneath  his  brown  beard,  both  leaning  over 
rough  maps  spread  on  the  counterpane. 

"But  you  are  tired,  pobrecito,"  he  would  exclaim  peni- 
tently. "My  selfishness;  you  know  so  much  that  I  do 
not.  Till  to-morrow,  my  son."  Then,  despite  Cad- 
berry's  protestations  of  strength,  he  would  sweep  up  the 
scattered  maps  and  papers  and  stride  out  with  his  long, 
plunging  noiseless  stride.  Cadberry  would  fume  and 
fret  for  a  while  and  then  fall  asleep.  .  .  . 

In  Flores  I  made  one  discovery  which  outranks  even 
Votan.  In  my  wanderings  about  the  town  I  stumbled 
on  a  store,  set  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  plaza,  the  most 
abject  apology  for  a  store  imaginable.  An  awning  of 
grain  sacks  protected  the  front ;  within  was  a  shelf,  dark- 
ness and  things  which  scuttled  underfoot  and  squeaked. 
And,  in  splendid  isolation  on  the  shelf,  flanked  by  sup- 
porters of  nameless  goods,  stood  a  can  of  Store  stuff, 
buff  binder,  black  elephant  and  all.  I  stared  at  it  in 
amazement,  read  the  label,  recognized  it  as  one  of  an  un- 
successful lot  which  we  had  disposed  of  at  auction.  I 
bought  it,  as  one  rescues  a  friend  from  captivity,  bore  it 
home  and  gloated  over  it.  I  became  fretful  and  worried 
and  in  a  hurry  to  get  back.  .  .  . 

We  left  Flores  regretfully  and  set  off  in  a  hired  native 
boat,  across  the  lake  and  down  the  San  Pedro,  another 
tributary  of  the  Usumacinta.  It  was  vastly  different 
from  our  ascent  of  the  river;  we  went  along  boldly,  slip- 
ping between  high  banks,  with  Cadberry,  very  weak  and 


272  FLOOD  TIDE 

white,  working  away  on  his  notes  under  a  canopy.  One 
thing  alone  marred  the  journey;  one  of  the  boatmen 
brought  with  him  an  accursed  instrument  of  two  strings 
and  we  had  Sobra  las  Olas  for  a  steady  diet. 

We  found  the  Shadow  very  foul  and  weed-grown, 
matted  with  vines  and  creepers  until  she  seemed  part  of 
the  forest.  Bergson,  bearded  now  like  Santa  Glaus, 
peered  out  through  a  loop  hole  in  the  vines  at  the  stern 
in  answer  to  our  hail.  "I  hat  become  almost  tired  of 
reading,"  he  admitted  huskily,  in  answer  to  our  questions. 
"Yes,  everything  is  all  right."  No,  he  was  not  particu- 
larly glad  to  see  us.  He  had  got  along  fairly  well;  he 
even  seemed  reluctant  to  leave.  "There  is  one  long  devil 
of  a  cat  who  trinks  at  a  spring  up  there,"  he  remarked 
as  we  hacked  away  at  the  clinging  growth.  "Every  night 
he  comes  down  to  trink  and  goes  away  laughing  at  me 
deep  down  in  his  belly.  And  every  night  I  have  waited  for 
him — mit  a  rifle.  Now,"  and  he  sighed  regretfully,  "we 
shall  never  meet.  He  would  have  looked  nice  on  the  bar- 
lor  floor  at  home." 

And  Kavenaugh — Kavenaugh  dove  past  Bergson  and 
down  the  hatch  to  the  engine  room,  and  from  time  to 
time  the  sound  of  his  low  and  joyous  profanity  floated  up 
to  us.  All  that  day  and  the  better  part  of  the  night  he 
worked  over  them,  scraping  off  the  thick  layer  of  gudgeon 
with  which  he  had  smeared  them,  testing  and  readjusting 
and  getting  himself  most  gloriously  coated  with  grease. 
Finally,  with  the  help  of  the  crew  of  our  river  boat,  we 
wrenched  free  from  the  little  inlet  and  wound  down  the 
tortuous  channel  to  the  main  stream.  Here  we  paid  off 
the  boatmen,  loaded  them  down  with  what  supplies  we 
could  spare,  and  sent  them  off  upstream,  happy.  Over 
the  Waves  floated  back  to  us,  grew  fainter  and  fainter, 
and  finally  dwindled  away  to  silence  as  they  crept  around 
a  turn  of  the  river  and  vanished.  Thank  God  we  had 
heard  the  last  of  that ! 

We  went  out  as  we  had  entered — in  the  night ;  past  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  873 

sleeping  town  and  out  to  sea.  All  the  way  across  the  Gulf 
— we  stopped  at  Key  West  to  telegraph  ahead — Bergson 
made  up  for  his  long  silence  by  talking  a  steady  stream. 
In  New  York,  topping  the  immense  pile  of  mail  which 
had  accumulated  during  my  absence,  I  found  a  telegram 
from  Lauretta.  It  was  then  late  in  June,  and  the  An- 
nersleys  had  gone  down  to  one  of  the  Maine  coast  towns 
to  start  the  summer.  I  was  to  come  down  in  the  Shadow 
and  join  them,  I  gathered.  She  had  so  much  to  tell  me. 


So  I  came  back,  filled  with  this  resolution  to  turn  over 
a  new  leaf.  It  was  good  to  be  back  again.  I  was  tired 
of  living  as  I  had  lived,  tired  of  loafing  and  persuading 
myself  that  I  was  contented.  I  wanted  to  get  into  har- 
ness again.  For  the  first  time  in  years  I  found  myself 
looking  forward  eagerly  to  the  prospect  of  going  back  to 
the  offices.  I  was  in  a  Walt  Whitmanesque  mood,  happy 
to  be  jostled  and  shoved  about  the  sidewalks,  envying  the 
passers  their  part  in  the  vast  comedy  of  labor.  I  stopped 
on  street  corners  and  watched  them;  ceaseless  streams 
of  people,  happy  in  doing  something  and  happily  unaware 
that  they  were  happy.  I  had  been  away  for  years,  ex- 
iled. I  returned  to  find  nothing  changed. 

There  was  one  change.  This  was  in  Marks.  He  had 
grown  sallow  and  thinner  during  the  winter,  not  only 
thinner  but  actually  shrunken.  Two  great  creases  had 
appeared  on  either  side  of  his  mouth,  drawing  down  the 
corners ;  the  skin  of  his  cheeks  hugged  close  to  the  bone 
beneath.  His  face  was  that  of  a  distance  runner,  drawn 
and  distorted  and  strained. 

He  met  me  at  the  door  of  the  inner  office,  a  great  sheaf 
of  papers  in  his  hand. 

"Well!"  he  said,  and  stared  at  me. 

"You're  not  looking  well,  Marks,"  I  said. 


274  FLOOD  TIDE 

"I  been  sick,"  he  said  briefly  and  turned  back  into  the 
office. 

I  gave  him  a  brief  outline  of  our  trip  and  hinted  awk- 
wardly at  my  new  resolution. 

"So  you're  back  for  good?" 

"Not  yet,"  I  qualified.  "Give  me  one  more  month.  I'll 
be  back  not  later  than  the  first  of  August." 

He  hesitated,  opened  his  mouth,  and  then  made  a  weary 
gesture  of  assent. 

"That's  a  good  date,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 


MARKS'  attitude  puzzled  me  faintly.  He  had  been  ob- 
viously surprised  to  see  me,  almost  disconcerted.  Then 
he  had  been  relieved  when  I  had  asked  for  another  month. 
And  yet  not  relieved;  he  had  made  some  further  remark 
about  the  first  of  August  which  I  hadn't  caught.  I  puz- 
zled over  it  and  then  forgot  it.  I  had  something  else 
to  think  about.  I  was  glad  to  be  back,  pleased  with  my 
determination  to  return  to  work.  The  first  of  August 
would  see  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  for  me. 

"I've  got  some  good  ideas,"  I  had  boasted.  "This 
month  will  give  me  a  chance  to  work  them  up.  Then  we'll 
make  things  hum." 

"Good,"  he  had  commented.  "I — I'm  beginning  to  find 
that  we  need  you." 

Marks  had  his  limitations,  I  thought.  We  all  discov- 
ered them,  sooner  or  later. 

This  mood  of  self-satisfaction  persisted  with  me  all 
that  week;  the  Shadow  was  hauled  out  at  Evans'  and  I 
bustled  about  and  sang  little  songs  to  myself  and  con- 
vinced myself  that  I  was  really  a  reformed  man.  It  was 
still  with  me  when  we  turned  northward  toward  Maine 
and  Lauretta.  In  fact,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
despite  my  quibbling  little  fits  of  restlessness  I  was  an 
extraordinary  self-satisfied  person  during  all  these  later 
years.  This  was  merely  the  flowering  of  the  mood. 

I  remember  this  particular  mental  state  as  I  remember 
my  Olympian-mooded  decisions  regarding  the  world  in 
general  during  my  first  year  at  Hatherly's  in  Boston,  as 
something  connected  with  another  man  than  myself.  I 
had  not  changed  to  any  great  extent,  you  see.  Then  I 
was  satisfied  with  the  result  of  my  musings  on  the  world 
275 


276  FLOOD  TIDE 

in  general  as  seen  in  the  light  of  my  young  wisdom;  now 
I  was  satisfied  with  my  deliberations  on  that  center  of 
the  universe,  myself.  That  was  the  sole  change ;  my  hori- 
zon had  narrowed,  self  had  been  substituted  for  the  world. 
I  wonder  if  we  all  make  this  substitution  as  we  grow  older. 

We  had  endless  trouble  with  the  motors  as  we  went  up 
through  the  Sbund;  they  had  given  us  a  great  deal  of 
bother  as  we  came  north  from  Frontera,  but  now  they 
seemed  governed  by  some  imp  of  perverseness.  Off  Cape 
Cod  they  went  back  on  us  entirely,  and  for  six  hours 
we  lay  rolling  in  a  wicked  welter  of  cross  rips  while  Kave- 
naugh  toiled  and  grunted  below;  the  long  gleaming  lines 
of  the  barren  dunes  were  very  near  when  he  finally  got 
them  turning  in  a  half-hearted  manner.  For  once  Kave- 
naugh  admitted  that  the  problem  was  beyond  his  experi- 
ence and  at  his  suggestion  we  ran  into  Boston  and  had 
the  entire  power  plant  overhauled. 

We  lay  off  Fort  Point  Channel  for  three  days  while 
Kavenaugh  and  a  fellow  craftsman  delved  into  the  depths 
of  the  motors  in  search  of  the  trouble.  This  made  an 
annoying  break  in  the  course  of  events,  not  only  because 
I  was  eager  to  get  on,  but  because  it  was  an  interruption. 
I  wanted  to  keep  moving,  to  get  busy  at  something,  no 
matter  what.  Finally  I  dug  out  a  sheaf  of  reports  which 
Marks  had  given  me  and  busied  myself  in  catching  up  with 
the  progress  of  The  Stores. 

We  sailed  again  on  a  gray,  leaden  day,  the  great  gray 
pinnacle  of  the  Customs  House  looming  ever  fainter  and 
fainter  behind  us  in  the  wreaths  of  mist  which  drifted  in 
from  the  lower  harbor.  We  stole  on  at  half  speed — Kave- 
naugh was  still  unsatisfied  with  the  performance  of  the 
starboard  motor — out  past  the  huddle  of  islands  to  the 
right  of  the  channel  and  so  through  Broad  Sound  to  the 
open  sea.  It  was  thicker  outside;  the  shore  faded  and 
vanished  and  the  intermittent  bellow  from  the  harbor 
came  more  faintly  as  the  Shadow  met  the  first  long  swells 
and  turned  northward  through  the  wet  grayness.  I  went 


FLOOD  TIDE  277 

below  and  took  up  Marks'  tabulations  and  records  again. 

An  hour — two  hours ;  I  lost  track  of  time  in  my  en- 
deavors to  regain  my  grasp  on  the  course  of  events.  I 
made  the  discovery  that  the  records  ended  with  January 
• — Marks'  omission,  no  doubt.  Gradually  I  became 
aware  of  a  change  in  our  motion.  The  hum  and  throb  of 
the  motors  had  died  away  and  in  the  stead  of  this  regular 
beat  of  sound  came  the  chuckle  of  the  waves  as  they 
slapped  the  side  and  gurgled  away  under  the  counter.  As 
I  listened,  the  Shadow  slid  up  the  back  of  one  long  roller, 
and,  tobogganing  down  the  slope,  dug  her  slim  bow  into 
the  next  gray-back  and  sent  a  swirl  of  green  water  over 
her  deck,  licking  at  the  panes  of  the  skylight  overhead. 

I  found  Kavenaugh  on  his  knees  before  the  silent  mass 
of  machinery.  He  answered  my  question  with  a  monosyl- 
labic grunt  and  continued  his  search,  choosing  first  one 
and  then  another  from  the  battery  of  tools  beside  him  on 
the  floor.  He  squatted  back  on  his  heels  and  held  up 
for  my  inspection  two  bits  of  steel. 

"Must  have  been  cracked  and  out  of  alignment  for  a 
long  time,"  he  said.  "See  the  old  break  and  the  new  one? 
That's  what  threw  the  whole  business  on  the  fritz — and 
that  Boston  duck  thought  it  was  the  timing."  He  spat 
contemptuously  in  the  grease  pan  and  slowly  erected  him- 
self. "Lucky  I  got  her  shut  off." 

"A  shore  job?"  I  asked. 

He  nodded.  "Oxy-acetylene.  Got  to  be  welded,  or  a 
new  part.  We  can  run  back  or — where  are  we,  Cap?" 
Bergson  had  turned  the  idle  wheel  over  to  Karl  and  come 
below  to  investigate. 

With  narrowed  eyes  Bergson  considered.  "Five  miles 
out,  and  at  half-speed — on  the  chart  is  a  place  called 
Whitehaven  which  seems  nearest.  We  could  go  back,  but 
with  one  propeller —  '  He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"There's  a  shop  thei*e,"  Kavenaugh  remembered.  "I 
got  some  babbit  there  when  we  stopped  four  years  ago. 
We'd  better  try  it." 


278  FLOOD  TIDE 

He  translated  my  nod  of  assent,  and  telling  Bergson 
to  put  her  hard  aport  until  we  found  how  she  acted  under 
a  single  thrust,  started  the  remaining  motor. 

I  hesitated  for  a  moment  and  then  followed  Bergson 
to  the  wheel  house.  This  abrupt  intrusion  of  Whitehaven 
startled  me;  since  my  father's  death  I  had  scarcely 
thought  of  the  town — so  completely  had  it  passed  from 
my  memory  that  I  had  forgotten  that  we  must  pass  by 
on  the  way  north.  But  here  were  the  familiar  outlines  on 
the  chart,  the  long  sweep  of  the  beach,  the  jagged  line 
of  the  Point  and  even  Buck's  Island,  a  tiny  dot  to  the 
northward.  I  managed  to  work  up  quite  a  decent  feeling 
of  reminiscence.  Not  such  a  bad  place  after  all;  we  had 
had  good  times  there,  Dick  and  myself — and  Bess.  This 
last  thought  came  quite  unpremeditated,  as  one  thinks 
of  something  dead  and  gone.  There  was  no  visualization ; 
I  merely  remember  that  I  remembered  her. 

The  fog  lifted  slightly  as  we  drew  in  near  shore; 
through  a  rift  we  caught  a  fugitive  glimpse  of  the  Point. 
Behind  it  and  across  the  harbor,  the  steeples  and  tips  of 
the  trees  on  the  hill  stood  out  dim  and  flat  against  their 
background  of  gray.  Nearer  at  hand  was  the  outer  buoy 
of  the  channel,  dipping  and  curtseying  in  the  long  rollers 
which  made  a  hidden  thunder  on  the  rocks  of  the  Point. 

Then  the  mist  closed  in  again,  and  in  dead  whiteness 
we  entered  the  harbor,  feeling  our  way  blindly  along  the 
line  of  buoys.  We  anchored,  and  the  rattle  of  the  chain 
echoed  back  to  us  from  the  wharves ;  from  the  deck  we 
sensed  rather  than  saw  the  nearness  of  the  shore.  Only 
the  dense  black  shadows  below  the  wharves  seemed  real; 
above  that  the  town  was  plane  on  plane  of  shadowy  illu- 
sion, fading  away  into  the  wet,  thin  blankness  of  the 
upper  air. 

Kavenaugh  swung  the  tender  outboard  and  lowered 
her;  I  watched  him  idly,  hesitating  between  two  forces. 
He  bent  over  to  twirl  the  flywheel,  and,  on  an  impulse, 
I  stepped  in  beside  him. 


FLOOD  TIDE  279 


I  left  Kavenaugh  at  Harding's  yards — no  longer  Hard- 
ing's,  however,  but  with  a  great  dingy  sign  of  another 
name  across  the  street  fence.  Beside  the  weater-beaten, 
unpainted  shed,  the  womb  from  which  so  many  trim  sea- 
children  had  gone  forth,  stood  another  building,  a  squat 
structure  of  dusty  brick  filled  with  the  clinking  and  clang- 
ing of  beaten  iron  and  the  spurting  light  of  forges. 

I  went  back  to  the  landing  where  we  had  left  the  tender, 
hesitated  a  moment  at  the  entrance  of  the  wharf,  and  then 
turned  off  into  the  misty  byways  of  the  town  The  same 
sleepy  old  town,  unchanged — never  would  change,  I  imag- 
ined. It  was  a  dead  backwater  in  the  stream  of  life;  the 
main  current  passed  by  and  left  it  undisturbed. 

I  passed  the  store,  unchanged  save  for  broad  plate 
glass  expanses  replacing  the  many  paned  windows  which 
had  been  so  hard  to  wash.  The  old  sign  was  still  over  the 
door,  the  letters  raised  now  where  wind  and  weather  had 
eaten  away  the  unprotected  wood  between.  Through  the 
window  I  caught  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  Grigsby,  scratching 
his  head  and  yawning  over  an  account  book  at  the  old 
desk.  He  turned  toward  the  window  and  I  went  away — 
hastily.  But  for  the  drift  of  circumstance  I  might  have 
been  in  Grigsby's  place  myself.  I  wondered  what  he 
would  have  made  of  the  reports  which  I  had  just  been 
looking  over.  Poor  Grigsby!  I  felt  sorry  for  him;  I 
felt  sorry  for  Whitehaven ;  I  wondered  how  long  it  would 
take  Kavenaugh  to  have  his  welding  done.  I  found  the 
town  depressing. 

But  still,  I  supposed  that  these  moribund  places  had 
their  part  in  the  general  scheme  of  affairs.  If  nothing 
more,  they  offered  landmarks  by  which  we  could  judge 
our  progress.  I  was  faintly  pleased  at  having  found  some 
justification  for  Whitehaven's  existence. 

Almost  instinctively  my  feet  turned  into  the  old  famil- 
iar way  from  the  store  to  the  house.  Nothing  had 


280  FLOOD  TIDE 

changed;  the  old  houses  stood  just  as  much  out  of  align- 
ment as  ever,  turned  sideways  toward  one  another  with  the 
air  of  exchanging  furtive  and  disparaging  comments  on 
the  passerby.  Here  and  there  a  new  structure  had  el- 
bowed in  between  or  replaced  one  of  the  older  houses.  .  .  . 
I  imagined  that  the  life  of  these  people  was  still  much  the 
same  as  when  1  had  left;  a  petty  round  of  neighborhood 
gossip,  a  dull  chronicle  of  births  and  deaths  and  little  in- 
consequentialities. 

This  stupidly  intolerant  mood  lasted  me  all  the  way 
up  the  hill  and  vanished  only  when  I  saw  the  old  house 
looming  ahead  through  the  mist.  The  horse  chestnut  tree 
still  stood,  crownless,  but  with  its  lower  branches  masses 
of  sturdy  green.  Below  it  the  roof  shone  faintly  green 
with  moss.  White  curtains  veiled  the  windows ;  in  my 
time,  I  remembered,  the  curtains  had  always  been  a  dusty 
and  neglected  yellow.  The  house  had  been  painted,  too, 
evidently  Captain  Waldron  had  taken  good  care  of  it. 
There  were  the  same  old  lilacs  on  either  side  of  the  front 
walk,  and  it  comes  back  to  me,  as  a  minor  memory,  that 
the  flower  beds  along  the  walk  were  wet  and  black  with 
the  drifted  fog  on  their  eastern  sides  and  brown  and 
crumbly  and  dry  on  the  west. 

I  felt  rather  foolish  as  I  lifted  the  knocker  and  sent 
the  echoes  rumbling  through  the  house.  Perhaps  Captain 
Waldron  had  rented  the  house  to  some  acid-voiced  old 
maid  who  would  mistake  me  for  a  book  agent.  In  my 
mind  I  framed  an  excuse  for  my  intrusion ;  I  would  say — 
The  door  opened. 

A  slim  figure  with  blue  eyes  beneath  a  piled  mass  of 
coppery  brown  hair  looked  gravely  out  at  me,  one  eye- 
brow lifted  in  interrogation.  I  stammered,  gasped,  and 
stood  silent. 

It  was  Elizabeth. 


FLOOD  TIDE  281 


m 

Her  look  of  questioning  changed  to  a  smile  of  recogni- 
tion. She  laughed,  doubtless  at  my  bewildered  look. 

"Hello!"  she  said  frankly.     "Come  in." 

She  stepped  back  into  the  shadows  of  the  narrow  hall, 
and  by  some  strange  and  involuntary  process  my  feet 
carried  me  in. 

"I  had  no  idea  you  were  in  town,"  she  said  easily,  clos- 
ing the  door  and  following  me  into  the  living  room. 

"Nor  I  you,"  said  a  voice  which  must  have  been  mine. 

"So  I  judged."  I  surrendered  my  hat,  which  I  had 
held  in  a  clutch  of  desperation.  She  stepped  back  into 
the  hall  to  dispose  of  it. 

"You  find  things  changed — greatly?"  she  asked,  re- 
turning. "You  must;  I've  changed  things  a  little  here, 
you  see." 

"Indeed  you  have.  But  the  town  hasn't  changed 
greatly  from  what  I've  seen  of  it." 

"You've  just   arrived?" 

"Within  a  half  hour." 

"Motor?"  she  queried. 

"The  Shadow — no,  not  the  old  sixteen  footer,"  as  she 
looked  up  abruptly.  "This  is  another  one." 

"Oh!  And  you  came  directly  here?  Or  did  you  exhaust 
the  possibilities  of  the  town  in  half  an  hour?" 

"Why —  "  I  seemed  on  the  defensive.  "It  seemed  the 
natural  thing  to  do,  I  suppose." 

She  nodded,  and  in  some  subtle  manner  I  felt  myself 
under  the  unspoken  indictment  of  always  choosing  the 
most  natural  and  easiest  course. 

Our  talk  slid  off  into  banalities  at  this  point — the 
weather  and  subjects  of  that  sort  which  people  discuss 
for  the  purpose  of  filling  a  silence.  I  found  time  to  look 
about  me  and  take  in  these  changes  which  she  had  pro- 
claimed. At  first  I  appreciated  the  change  as  a  whole,  as 
an  atmosphere  unconnected  with  my  former  remem- 


282  FLOOD  TIDE 

brances,  but  as  I  gradually  recalled  the  room  as  it  had 
been  in  our  old  days  of  disordered  and  slovenly  house- 
keeping the  changes  came  home  to  me. 

Some  one  with  an  artistic  sense  had  been  busy  about 
the  old  house.  Bess?  I  wondered.  The  brown  paint 
which  had  adorned  the  woodwork  with  whorls  and  im- 
possible waves1  of  false  graining  had  been  covered  with  a 
dull  white;  the  walls,  once  garish  with  huge  roses,  were 
now  quiet  gleaming  expanses  of  dull  yellow,  topped  with 
a  slender  border  of  deeper  yellow  and  brown.  In  place  of 
the  old  battered  tobacco-strewn  table  the  center  of  the 
room  was  occupied  by  a  wicker  work  affair,  with  maga- 
zines and  books  and — final  touch  of  femininity — an  em- 
broidery frame  instead  of  the  dusty  confusion  I  remem- 
bered. The  haircloth  chairs  with  oak  leaf  carving  cun- 
ningly calculated  to  offend  the  most  vulnerable  points 
of  one's  back  had  accompanied  the  table  into  oblivion. 
Rugs  and  polished  wood  replaced  the  rag  carpets  of 
yesterday;  on  the  walls  soft  splotches  of  color  had  re- 
placed— what  had  hung  there?  I  searched  my  memory 
and  brought  forth  a  sense  of  Civil  War  engravings  in 
black  walnut  frames  and  a  series  of  Our  Presidents  behind 
a  cracked  glass — a  series  which  had  ended  with  Garfield. 
Only  one  thing  of  the  old  order  remained,  the  great  wing 
chair  in  which  my  father  had  lounged  and  smoked  and 
made  tobacco-scattering  gestures ;  even  that  was  cov- 
ered with  dull  brown  leather.  This  brought  my  gaze  back 
to  Bess.  From  the  depths  of  the  chair  she  had  watched 
my  inspection  with  calm  and  impersonal  interest. 

"You  like  it?"  she  asked.  "I  thought  you  would.  Or 
perhaps  you  were  looking  for  the  parrot  and  cat?  I 
haven't  arrived  at  the  parrot  stage  yet,  but  there's  a  cat, 
unless  you've  frightened  her  out  of  town." 

She  leaned  over  and  pursed  her  lips  in  a  whistle;  a 
gray,  fluffy  head  peered  out  from  beneath  the  table,  fol- 
lowed by  a  striped,  fat  little  body.  Bess  smoothed  out 
her  dress  invitingly;  the  kitten  leaped  up  with  a  little 


FLOOD  TIDE  283 

purr  of  content,  looked  at  me,  looked  at  her,  turned 
around  twice  and  settled  down  to  blink  at  me  wisely. 

She  looked  at  me  critically,  through  half  closed  eyes, 
her  head  leaned  back  aganst  the  dull  leather  of  the  chair. 
"You  have  changed  a  good  deal.  It  may  be  just  the 
shadows  of  the  room,  but  your  face  seems  brown  on  the 
forehead  and  white  below.  Is  it  just  my  imagination?" 

"It  does  look  strange,"  I  admitted.  "I've  been  south 
all  winter — Central  America,  back  in  the  woods.  I  let 
my  beard  grow ;  that's  why  I  seem  to  be  wearing  a  mask." 

She  leaned  forward  eagerly.  "Did  Dick  ever  go  back 
there?  He  was  planning  to,  you  know.  Perhaps  you 
were  together?" 

"No.  Dick's  settled  down  now — married  and  meddling 
in  government.  This  was  just  an  exploring  expedition 
in  upper  Gautemala." 

"Then  you  didn't  get  as  far  as  Argentina?"  A  faint 
smile  hovered  about  her  eyes. 

"Argentina?  No."  I  recalled  faint  memories.  I  had 
planned  once  to  go  to  Argentina  and  return —  -  "You 
remember  that?" 

"I  remember — many  things."  She  scratched  the  kit- 
ten's ribs  and  it  squirmed  and  purred  in  content.  The 
smile  vanished  from  about  her  eyes  and  a  little  line  sprang 
up  between  them. 

I  sought  some  loose  end  in  the  tangled  skein  of  the 
past,  some  loose  end  which  we  might  unravel  safely,  sure 
that  we  would  find  nothing  disagreeable  at  the  end. 

"But — Guatemala,  you  say?"  she  said  presently. 
"Have  you  gone  into  the  revolution  business — or  is  it 
mining  now?  We  hear  very  little  of  the  world  outside, 
you  know." 

"The  town  is  as  sleepy  as  ever,  I  suppose.  About  last 

winter "  I  searched  about  for  some  point  to  start  on. 

"But  I'm  keeping  you  from  your  work ;  don't  let  me  inter- 
rupt you.  You  were  cooking  something?" 


284.  FLOOD  TIDE 

Her  lifted  eyebrows  expressed  surprise  and  mystifi- 
cation. 

"Experience  has  taught  me  to  connect  a  streak  of  flour 
on  a  woman's  nose  with  cooking,"  I  said,  pleased  with  my 
deduction. 

Her  hand  went  up  to  her  face.  "I  always  get  all 
smudged  up,". she  laughed,  surveying  her  hand  and  rub- 
bing vigorously.  "Yes ;  I  was  making  cookies — ginger 
cookies.  But  that  can  wait." 

"Ginger  cookies?"  I  said  with  a  fine  wistfulness.  "I 
haven't  tasted  one  for  years.  I  wish  you'd  go  ahead  and 
let  me  watch  you." 

"Just  watch?"  She  dumped  the  kitten  uncere- 
moniously on  the  floor.  "I'll  make  some  extra  ones,  if 
you've  been  saving  your  appetite  for  years." 

I  followed  her  out  into  the  kitchen,  remembering  to 
stoop  as  I  passed  through  the  low  doorway  and  smiling 
to  myself  as  I  ducked  my  head.  The  old  house  had  been 
built  for  a  less  altitudinous  Coffin  than  myself,  and  my 
first  intimation  of  approaching  manhood  had  been  a' 
thump  on  the  head  from  this  same  lintel. 

It  had  been  dark  in  the  living  room,  shaded  as  it  was 
beneath  the  chestnut  tree  and  the  thick  woven  pattern  of 
misty  green  lilacs  against  the  grayness  outside.  In  the 
kitchen  it  was  much  lighter.  Bess  took  up  her  inter- 
rupted labors  at  the  low  table  before  the  window,  motion- 
ing me  to  a  low  chair  whch  I  dimly  recalled  as  having 
been  part  of  our  old  kitchen  equipment. 

My  chief  memory  of  this  unexpected  and  unsought 
meeting  is  that,  after  the  first  feeling  of  surprise  wore  off, 
there  seemed  nothing  unexpected  and  unusual  about  it. 
I  might  have  been  away  for  a  day,  instead  of  twelve  years. 
Bess  was  unchanged,  changed  for  the  better,  if  changed 
at  all.  Her  somewhat  angular  outlines  had  filled  out,  her 
hair  darkened  a  shade;  only  the  little  line  which  sprang 
out  and  disappeared  between  her  brows  was  new.  I  even 
found  myself  skipping  and  avoiding  subjects  which  prom- 


FLOOD  TIDE  285 

ised  to  be  unpleasant,  just  as  I  had  before.  And  I  fol- 
lowed my  old  custom  of  making  awkward  breaks. 

"You  haven't  married  again,"  I  said.  It  was  neither  a 
question  nor  an  assertion,  rather  a  sudden  thought  which 
slipped  out  unintentionally. 

She  paused  for  a  moment,  with  the  mixing  spoon  poised 
over  the  yellow  bowl. 

"No,"  she  said,  and  the  little  line  came  into  being. 
"Once  was  enough." 

I  cursed  my  clumsiness. 

"And  you?"  she  went  on  evenly. 

"The  same." 

"Not  married  again?" 

"Not  for  the  first  time."  I  took  new  courage  and 
blundered  on  into  a  question  which  had  perplexed  me. 
"Your  mother  still  lives  in  the  Carver  house?  I  should 
have  thought " 

"She's  dead,"  Bess  said  soberly.  "Yes,  I  still  own  the 
house — it  never  got  to  be  called  the  Alden  house,  did  it? 
I  rent  it,  you  know,  and  pay  rent  here  to  Captain  Wal- 
dron.  There's  a  difference — enough  to  live  on.  Captain 
Waldron  is  very  good ;  I  don't  know  what  I'd  do  without 
him." 

I  went  on  suddenly  to  the  tale  of  the  past  winter.  That 
was  safe  ground.  I  felt  that  she  might  ask  questions 
about  Captain  Waldron's  possession  of  the  house.  If  she 
knew  that  I  still  owned  it 

Darkness  crept  out  from  its  lurking  places  in  the  cor- 
ners as  we  talked;  the  mist  changed  to  a  fine  drizzle  of 
rain  which  dripped  slowly  from  the  eaves.  Bess,  a  dark 
silhouette  against  the  gathering  grayness  outside,  laughed 
frequently  as  we  recalled  some  absurd  old  memory,  a  low, 
full  laugh  which  came  easily  and  sincerely.  I  remembered 
her  as  seldom  laughing  in  the  old  days.  We  talked  of 
safe  subjects;  Stowell,  the  changes  about  town,  old 
schoolmates,  Captain  Waldron.  We  avoided  talk  of 
ourselves.  The  Stores  was  an  unavoidable  subject;  I  even 


286  FLOOD  TIDE 

told  her  how  I  had  become  tired  of  The  Stores.  She 
understood.  But  I  didn't  tell  her  that  I  was  going  back  to 
work.  That  would  have  brought  in  Lauretta.  I  was  try- 
ing to  avoid  unpleasant  subjects,  you  see. 

I  gorged  on  ginger  cookies  and  found  their  seductive 
flavor  unimpaired  by  the  passage  of  time.  Finally  she 
sent  me  away,  i 

"But  I'll  see  you  again  before  you  leave  town,"  she 
said  as  she  switched  on  the  hall  light. 

"You  will,"  I  asserted  confidently.  Had  I  planned  to 
leave  as  soon  as  possible?  Or  hadn't  I?  I  forgot. 

I  looked  back  as  I  turned  from  the  path  to  the  side- 
walk ;  she  stood  in  the  doorway  looking  after  me,  a  slender 
figure  seen  through  the  golden  drizzle  against  the  light  of 
the  hall.  The  light  went  out ;  I  turned  up  my  coat  collar 
and  went  on  down  the  hill. 

At  the  wharf  I  found  Kavenaugh,  disconsolately  sur- 
veying the  misty  darkness  from  a  dry  shelter. 

"You  got  the  casting  welded?"  I  asked  as  we  swung 
away  toward  the  golden  lights  of  the  Shadow. 

"They're  sending  to  Boston  for  a  tank  of  gas,"  he 
answered.  "Have  it  to-morrow — perhaps.  Swell  place." 
He  spat  disdainfully  over  the  side  and  gave  the  wheel  a 
vicious  twirl. 

"No  hurry.     We  may  stay  here  a  week." 

He  looked  at  me  in  some  astonishment.  "You  were  in 
a  hurry  to  get  away  from  Boston,"  he  accused. 

"I  was  born  here,  Kav,"  I  explained. 

He  was  silent.  He  whistled  softly  to  himself  and  slowed 
down  the  motor  as  we  drew  alongside. 

"Well,  you've  lived  it  down,"  he  concluded  dryly. 

Sentiment  was  not  in  Kavenaugh.  He  failed  to  under- 
stand how  good  it  was  to  come  back  home  and  revive  old 
acquaintance. 


FLOOD  TIDE  287 


Captain  Waldron  came  out  the  next  morning,  sculling 
his  little  dory  with  sure  and  swift  strokes.  I  found  it 
difficult  to  get  him  to  talk  of  Whitehaven  matters  at  first, 
but  finally,  with  a  cigar  held  gingerly  between  his  fingers, 
and  his  feet  cocked  up  on  the  rail,  I  got  him  started. 

Yes,  Betsy  had  told  him  that  I  was  here.  He  was  seized 
by  a  sudden  thought. 

"Say,"  he  ejaculated,  clearing  his  throat  and  giving 
signs  of  embarrassment.  "Did  you  tell  her  that  you 
owned  the  house?  Or  did  you?" 

"She  thinks  you  own  it,"  I  answered.  "No,  I  didn't  tell 
her." 

He  seemed  relieved.     "You  knew  she  was  there?" 

"How  should  I?" 

"Receipts  was  all  signed  E.  Learoyd,"  he  reminded  me. 

I  have  never  thought  of  Bess  as  named  Learoyd.  Be- 
sides, I  hadn't  seen  a  receipt  for  over  two  years.  My 
reputation  as  a  business  man  suffered  in  Captain  Billy's 
estimation  through  this  admission. 

"You'd  better  not  tell  her,  then,"  he  suggested.  A 
blush  spread  through  the  tiny  veins  which  etched  his 
cheeks.  "I  thought  I'd  best  not  tell  her  that  she  was 
beholden  to  you  for  the  rent — owing  to  the  late  un- 
pleasantness. You  see?" 

I  saw. 

"Thought  you  would,"  he  sighed  in  relief,  and  became 
engrossed  in  watching  a  passing  sloop. 

"How  long  has  she  been  here?"  I  asked. 

"Came  in  yesterday,"  he  answered  absently,  craning 
his  neck  to  follow  the  sloop.  "Run  short  of  gasoline,  I 
guess.  Oh,  Betsy,  you  mean?"  He  mumbled  to  himself 
and  did  some  calculation  on  his  fingers.  "Five  years  come 
November,"  he  announced.  "We  had  the  big  icewall  that 
year." 

We  were  silent  for  a  moment.     "This  Learoyd  was  a 


288  FLOOD  TIDE 

bad  egg,  I  guess,"  he  volunteered.  "That  is,  from  what 
I  hear  of  him." 

"So?" 

"Yes.  Don't  believe  anybody  stayed  awake  nights 
weeping  for  him."  He  chewed  ferociously  on  his  cigar 
and  shot  off  at  a  tangent.  "You're  still  writing  your  own 
sailing  orders1 — ain't  married  yet?" 

"Not  yet,"  I  answered. 

After  that  I  got  but  little  out  of  him.  He  refused  to 
enthuse  as  I  showed  him  about  the  Shadow  and  was  unim- 
pressed by  my  Gautemalan  experiences.  At  his  insistence 
we  went  ashore  and  I  was  escorted  in  state  to  Coulter's 
Wharf  and  introduced  to  an  early  rising  gathering  of 
Captain  Waldron's  associates.  They  sat  in  a  line  along 
the  front  of  the  wharf,  basking  in  the  morning  sun  and 
squinting  out  under  tilted  hats  at  the  craft  in  the  harbor. 
Some  of  these  men  I  remembered  faintly  as  having  been 
infrequent  visitors  in  port  during  my  youth. 

We  visited  the  store  together,  surprising  Grigsby  in  a 
hasty  lick-and-a-promise  cleaning.  He  had  made  a  few — 
pitifully  few — timid  changes  since  I  had  left  him  in 
charge  and  snatched  eagerly  at  some  changes  which  I 
proposed.  Yes,  he  had  thought  of  something  like  that, 
but  he  wasn't  quite  sure,  he  hadn't  wanted  to  make  any 

great  changes  without  my  permission,  he  had I 

understood,  and  arranged  in  a  few  moments  for  changes 
which  my  father  would  have  considered  and  weighed  for 
months.  I  felt  a  glow  of  satisfaction  at  my  summary  dis- 
posal of  matters,  and  at  the  same  time  was  conscious  of  a 
feeling  of  pity  and  contempt  for  Grigsby.  Like  the  rest 
of  Whitehaven,  he  was  content  to  scrub  along  with  anti- 
quated methods. 

I  believe  that  Captain  Waldron  proposed  that  we  go 
up  to  the  old  house;  I  should  have  suggested  it  if  he 
hadn't.  Now  that  Elizabeth  had  come  back  into  my  mind 
again  I  found  myself  dwelling  more  and  more  on  old  mem- 
ories of  her ;  long  forgotten  things  quickened  and  took  on 


FLOOD  TIDE  289 

the  aspect  of  life  again  as  we  went  slowly  up  the  hill.  Cap- 
tain Waldron,  despite  his  boasted  spryness,  found  it  con- 
venient to  stop  here  and  there,  ostensibly  to  point  out 
changes  in  the  town  but  really  to  regain  his  breath.  I 
listened  and  commented  at  the  wrong  points;  how  had  I 
ever  forgotten  Bess  and  that  queer  trick  she  had  of  smil- 
ing in  a  one-sided  manner?  Had  I  really  forgotten? 

I  found  it  hard  that  morning  to  compare  Bess  with  the 
image  of  years  ago ;  the  impressions  of  the  day  before  had 
overlayed  and  obscured  a  good  many  of  my  early  recol- 
lections of  her.  As  I  recognized  and  remembered  some 
of  the  odd  little  mannerisms  she  had  once  possessed,  the 
impression  that  she  had  not  changed  became  stronger. 
She  had  a  queer  way  of  asking  a  question,  inflecting  it 
as  a  statement  and  punctuating  it  by  a  lifted  brow;  an- 
other trick  which  I  recognized  and  recalled  was  a  fashion 
she  had  of  snapping  her  fingers  when  one  was  half  way 
through  an  answer  to  her  question.  She  had  always  been 
singularly  quick  and  alert  at  grasping  things.  I  detected 
certain  resemblances  between  Lauretta  and  Bess;  the 
clear  pallor  of  her  face,  for  instance.  I  remembered  that 
even  in  winter  Lauretta  always  had  a  drift  of  freckles 
across  her  nose.  Scarcely  an  ornament,  I  decided. 

Unconsciously  or  not,  I  see  that  I  must  have  been 
making  this  comparison  through  all  the  week  that  I 
lingered  at  Whitehaven,  sometimes  subconsciously  and 
sometimes  deliberately.  Either  way,  I  found  it  a  hard  one 
to  make,  this  balancing  of  a  mental  image  with  flesh  and 
blood.  Sometimes  Elizabeth  suffered  by  the  contrast,  as 
was  natural,  for  in  my  mental  image  of  Lauretta  I  had 
incorporated  all  her  good  features  and  omitted  the  ones 
which  had  caused  me  passing  feelings  of  annoyance.  As 
time  went  on  I  found  myself  recalling  these  flaws  and 
replacing  her  image  with  that  of  Bess.  .  .  . 

Worthington  quotes  something  about  turning  from  a 
chiseled  Venus  to  yonder  girl  who  fords  the  burn.  .  .  . 


290  FLOOD  TIDE 


Kavenaugh  completed  his  repairs  and  the  next  day  I 
persuaded  Elizabeth  to  come  on  a  trial  run  down  the 
coast  to  the  northward.  Kavenaugh  had  expressed  a 
desire  to  try  out  the  repaired  motor  before  venturing 
on  an  extended  trip  with  it  and  this  furnished  me  my 
excuse. 

There  was  a  thin,  tenuous  mist  in  the  air,  barely  enough 
to  bring  out  the  projections  of  the  coast  in  relief.  We 
leaned  over  the  rail  and  watched  the  coast  slide  slowly 
by,  past  the  beach  and  the  mouth  of  the  river  and  the 
wooded  headlands  beyond — partly  denuded  now  and  with 
a  sprinkling  of  summer  cottages  where  I  recalled  nothing 
but  unbroken  shore.  We  passed  the  cliff  behind  which 
Dick  and  I  had  hunted  rabbits;  Bess  laughed  as  I  told 
her  of  our  exploit. 

"I  had  an  old  horse  pistol  and  Dick  had  a  Flobert.  I 
was  to  be  the  reserve  gun — to  hold  my  fire  in  case  they 
charged." 

"You  never  told  me  of  that." 

I  hesitated.  "And  back  there — but  the  dune  has  shifted. 
We  sat  there — you  were  going  to  college  or  on  the  stage. 
And  Martha  was  shocked.  Or  was  it  Hilda?" 

"Hilda,"  she  concluded  after  a  pause.  "We  looked 
down  on  her  then  because  she  seemed  content  with  such 
little  things.  We  looked  down  on  everybody  who  didn't 
agree  with  us.  I'm  not  sure.  Perhaps  she  was  nearer 
right  than  we  were." 

"She  was  a  stuffy  young  prig.  So  were  we,  in  a  dif- 
ferent way." 

Bess  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "She  seems  satisfied.  I 
see  her  now  and  then." 

"It's  easy  to  get  little  things,"  I  said.  I  had  never 
loved  Hilda. 

"Little  things,"  she  repeated,  dwelling  on  the  word.  "I 
suppose  you're  right." 


FLOOD  TIDE  291 

I  had  a  sense  that  she  disagreed  with  my  interpretation 
but  thought  the  subject  hardly  worth  discussing. 

"But  I  imagine  she's  had  her  disappointments,"  she 
went  on.  "We  all  have.  You  have  and  so  have  I.  Things 
haven't  turned  out  as  we  wished  them  to."  She  wrinkled 
her  brows.  "No,  I'll  change  that.  They  have  turned 
out  as  we  wished  them,  but  the  reality  disappoints  us. 
Isn't  that  it?" 

She  faced  me  squarely  and  put  the  question  direct. 

"Partly,"  I  admitted.  "But  we  can  only  plan  and 
then  try  to  bring  reality  out  of  what  we  plan.  If  we  fail, 
either  in  accomplishment  or  in  aim — well,  we're  in  the 
same  boat  with  the  rest  of  humanity." 

"Then  your  idea  of  success  is ?" 

I  groped  in  my  mind  for  an  answer. 

"Offhand,  I  should  say—  "  I  hesitated.  "I  haven't 
considered  it.  But  perhaps  aiming  at  the  right  thing 
and  then  getting  it  is  as  good  a  definition  as  any." 

The  Shadow  lost  headway  for  a  moment  as  Kavenaugh 
made  some  adjustment  in  the  motors;  then  their  steady 
drone  sounded  again  and  we  picked  up  speed.  Bess  con- 
sidered my  statement,  watching  the  waves  as  they  fell 
away  from  the  side  in  little  curling  ripples. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  that  covers  it,"  she  concluded  in  a 
low  voice. 

"We  make  mistakes,  of  course — 

I  had  been  waiting  for  that  and  yet  hoping  that  it 
would  not  come. 

"We  all  do,"  I  added.  "But  sometimes  we  have  a 
chance  to  make  up  for  them." 

I  watched  the  cliffs  slip  by  and  was  conscious  that  my 
heart  had  shifted  a  notch  and  was  beating  in  my  throat. 

"We  all  do,"  she  echoed  absently.  "But  about  the 
making  up —  I'm  not  sure.  Do  we  ever?" 

I  was  silent.  I  wasn't  sure  about  that  myself.  Had 
she  deliberately  provoked  this  discussion?  I  see  now  that 
this  question  was  so  near  the  surface  that  it  needed  but 


292  FLOOD  TIDE 

a  slight  shift  in  the  current  to  bring  it  up.  We  had  made 
that  shift. 

There  was  but  one  answer  to  her  question.  I  was  very 
conscious  of  her  nearness,  leaning  on  the  rail  beside  me; 
out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye  I  took  in  the  droop  of  her 
shoulders  and  the  clean,  smooth  lines  of  her  face  and 
throat  seen  in  profile.  I  couldn't  answer  and  the  chance 
slipped  from  me. 

"Show  me  about  below  decks,"  she  commanded 
abruptly. 

VI 

I  loitered  and  forgot  my  haste.  There  was  no  hurry; 
I  might  not  come  this  way  again  for  years.  Best  make 
the  most  of  it  while  I  could.  There  were  further  ex- 
cursions on  the  Shadow,  Captain  Waldron  and  once  even 
Grigsby  and  his  progeny  accompanying  us.  There  were 
no  further  awkward  allusions. 

I  found  other  excuses  for  staying.  I  discovered  friends 
among  the  summer  colony — or  rather  they  discovered  me 
— people  I  had  met  during  other  summers  along  the  coast 
and  on  my  previous  visit  at  Whitehaven,  three  years  be- 
fore. I  remember  once  or  twice  an  uneasy  feeling  that  I 
was  slipping  back  into  the  old  careless  way  of  living  that 
I  had  left  forever.  But  this  was  my  last  fling  at  it — 
absolutely.  Carpe  diem. 

Among  these  people  I  found  Mrs.  Fairleigh,  still  pur- 
suing the  eligible  male  on  behalf  of  her  two  gawky 
daughters  and  with  no  more  success  than  she  had  found 
at  the  Arrowrock  colony.  She  was  the  first  to  discover 
me,  coming  out  to  the  Shadow  and  scolding  me  for  not 
letting  her  know  I  was  coming.  She  could  have  used  me, 
she  said  frankly.  I  had  been  abandoned  as  a  possibility 
and  she  could  afford  to  be  frank. 

"But  you're  early,"  she  said. 

I  looked  polite  questions. 


FLOOD  TIDE  293 

"For  the  midsummer  races,  of  course,"  she  explained. 
That  seemed  a  good  excuse  for  my  presence  and  I  let  it 
pass.  She  schemed  and  planned  and  assumed  a  proprie- 
tary right  over  the  Shadow;  there  were  to  be  dances 
ashore,  I  gathered,  and  during  regatta  week — it  being 
assumed  that  I  would  stay — a  two  day  trip. 

"There  will  be  a  moon,"  she  calculated,  "and  the  girls 
look  good  by  moonlight — provided  it's  not  too  bright." 

I  was  a  helpless  victim.  In  truth  I  rather  enjoyed 
being  ordered  about. 

"And  who  else  is  coming  up  from  the  Arrowrock?"  she 
demanded. 

I  had  no  idea. 

"The  Annersleys?"  she  suggested. 

"They're  down  in  Maine,"  I  answered.  "I'm  to  join 
them  when  you  let  me  go." 

"Young  Larry  is  quite  a  friend  of  yours,  isn't  he?"  she 
suggested  innocently. 

"They're  good  people,"  I  said  with  an  assumed  indif- 
ference. 

"Hmmm,  yes;  I  think  I  see."  She  smiled  at  some 
thought  of  hers  and  changed  the  subject.  .  .  . 

She  paused  at  the  gangway  as  she  left,  struggling  with 
some  demon  of  curiosity.  I  expected  further  questions 
about  the  Annersleys. 

"You  seem  quite  at  home  over  town,"  she  said,  inspect- 
ing the  handle  of  her  parasol  with  a  sudden  interest. 
"You  know  some  one  over  there?" 

"I'm  a  native,  you  know." 

"Oh!"  she  said,  as  though  that  explained  some  deep 
problem.  And  then:  "Oh!"  in  a  tone  of  understanding. 
She  had  the  gift  of  packing  volumes  in  one  syllable. 

She  looked  back  as  her  launch  circled  away  and  called 
up  to  me  over  her  shoulder.  "You  must  come  over  this 
afternoon  and  bring  her." 

"I  will,"  I  answered,  and  wondered  why  she  laughed. 


294  FLOOD  TIDE 

Later  I  was  struck  with  the  suspicion  that  her  invitation 
had  been  merely  a  shot  at  random.  I  hadn't  mentioned 
Elizabeth.  .  .  . 

Still,  Mrs.  Fairleigh  was  surprised  when  I  brought 
Elizabeth  over,  surprised  and  not  greatly  pleased  at  first, 
for  the  girls  suffered  by  the  contrast.  We  sat  on  the 
piazza  overlooking  the  rocks  that  afternoon ;  there  was 
an  ancient  dowager  whom  Mrs.  Fairleigh  had  presented 
as  "Cousin  James'  wife,  you  know" — Cousin  James,  I 
gathered  by  inference,  had  lent  Mrs.  Fairleigh  the  place 
for  the  summer — and  the  girls,  who  presently  vanished 
on  some  mysterious  errand  having  to  do  with  dressmaking. 
I  remembered  that  the  dowager  was  inquistive  in  a  mildly 
genealogical  fashion.  She  was  visibly  relieved  when  she 
found  that  Bess,  through  Learoyd,  was  connected  with 
an  old  Mr.  Bradford. 

"I  remember  him  well.  One  of  the  very  first  families  to 
build  here,"  she  told  Mrs.  Fairleigh  triumphantly,  "one 
of  the  very  first."  By  her  tone  she  allied  Mr.  Bradford 
with  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

She  was  also  very  annoying  in  seeking  an  explanation 
of  Elizebeth's  presence  in  Whitehaven.  To  her  mind  the 
townspeople  were  an  inferior  sort  of  peasantry  indeed. 

"Settlement  work!"  she  concluded  triumphantly,  al- 
though with  an  inflection  of  doubt. 

"After  a  fashion,"  Bess  agreed  quietly.  Her  tone 
forestalled  further  inquiry.  .  .  . 

That  night  Mrs.  Fairleigh  cornered  me  at  the  yacht 
club  and  planned  a  dinner  on  the  Shadow — just  a  few 
matrimonial  possibilities  and  her  daughters,  with  a 
sprinkling  of  people  to  fill  in.  Quite  a  small  affair,  I  was 
assured. 

"And  Mrs.  Learoyd,  of  course,"  she  added,  quite  as 
an  afterthought. 


FLOOD  TIDE  295 


vn 

"I  wish  the  girls  were  half  as  good-looking,"  said  Mrs. 
Fairleigh  viciously.  "But  they  will  stick  out  of  their 
clothes.  Look  at  them !" 

She  turned  to  me  half  despairingly.  She  was  right,  but 
it  is  always  safer  to  contradict  such  statements.  People 
expect  it. 

"I  know,"  she  admitted,  "it's  fashionable  to  be  thin — 
don't  I  know  it,  though,  what  with  half  starving  myself ! 
But  it's  not  fashionable  to  be  skinny — never  will  be.  They 
take  after  their  father.  Your  Mrs.  Learoyd  now " 

She  considered  Bess  thoughtfully.  We  sat  in  the 
shadows  beyond  the  awning  which  spread  above  the  deck ; 
across  the  lighted  deck  Bess  laughed  and  talked  with  a 
man  named  Isham,  one  of  these  people  with  deep  voices 
and  shallow  minds.  He  was  correcting  her  pronunciation 
of  an  Italian  name.  "Not  Forenzee"  we  heard,  "but 
Feorendha."  He  showed  prominent  teeth.  She  tried  to 
follow  his  pronunciation  and  gave  it  up.  "Let's  call  it 
Florence,  then,"  she  answered  and  smiled  up  at  him. 
"That's  safer  and  more  English."  I  disliked  Isham  in- 
stinctively. 

"That  dress  of  hers  is  years  out  of  style,"  Mrs.  Fair- 
leigh continued,  "although  of  course  you  wouldn't  notice 
that.  But  it  suits  her.  Ethel,  now,  looks  as  though  some 
one  had  wished  her  clothes  on  her — some  one  with  a  spite 
against  her." 

I  mumbled  something;  these  comments  of  hers  were 
embarrassing  at  times. 

"I  wish  upon  my  soul  that  some  one  would  marry 
them,"  she  went  on.  "Couldn't  you?  Just  to  help  me 
out?  Guaranteed  quiet  and  house-broken,  domestic — 
too  confoundedly  domestic.  You  won't?  Oh  well — 
She  shrugged  her  plump  shoulders  and  laughed.  "I 
wanted  to  be  frank,  for  once.  Daughters  are  a  bother. 
And  they  won't  help  themselves. 


296  FLOOD  TIDE 

"But  Mrs.  Learoyd?"  she  resumed.  "You've  told  me 
nothing  of  her,  just  produced  her  without  explanation  or 
apology.  Not  that  she  needs  apology,  unless  for  hiding 
away  so  long.  But  explanation — yes.  A  sweetheart  in 
every  port — but  that  went  out  with  the  square-riggers. 
Or  is  she  an  old  love?  Upon  my  soul,  the  more  I  see  of 
you  bachelors'  the  less  I  know  about  you." 

"She  is  a  widow,"  I  volunteered. 

"I  knew  that  already." 

"And  I  knew  her  a  long  time  ago."  I  realized  how 
very  little  I  knew  of  Bess  and  her  life  during  the  past 
years. 

"Go  on,"  prompted  Mrs.  Fairleigh.  "  'Once  upon  a 
time '  " 

Some  one  slipped  a  record  in  the  music  machine  which 
had  been  brought  up  from  below  and  the  groups  under 
the  awning  broke  up  into  couples.  Mrs.  Fairleigh  rose. 
"Don't  mind  me,"  she  said  in  apology,  "my  mind  runs  on 
these  things."  She  contemplated  the  dancers  with  a 
grimace.  "Dance  and  be  thin.  No,  not  with  you ;  you've 
been  away  a  thousand  years  and  I'm  not  giving  lessons. 
I'll  take  Isham  away  from  Mrs.  Learoyd.  He  deserves 
to  do  penance." 

I  watched  her  as  she  crossed  the  lighted  space  and 
approached  Isham  and  Bess.  They  chatted  together  a 
moment,  then  Mrs.  Fairleigh  seized  on  Isham,  despite  his 
mock  protestations,  and  they  circled  away  together. 
Through  the  shifting  figures  I  caught  occasional  glimpses 
of  Bess,  framed  against  an  opening  in  the  awning,  a 
straight  figure  in  dull  shimmering  yellow  against  the  vel- 
vet dusk  of  the  night  and  the  long  reflected  lines  of  light 
from  the  anchored  craft  about  us.  She  drew  back,  half 
within  the  outer  shadows,  and  looked  on  with  a  smile;  I 
felt  her  eyes  on  me  as  I  picked  my  way  across  the  deck 
and  stood  beside  her. 

"I  haven't  danced  for  years,"  she  said,  and  wrinkled 


FLOOD  TIDE  297 

her  brows  in  an  effort  of  memory.  "And  then  not  like 
this.  'Spieling,'  they  used  to  call  it." 

"Try  it,"  I  urged. 

"I  shouldn't  dare,"  she  remonstrated.  "But  we  might 
try  one  of  the  old  ones.  No ;  not  in  there,  out  here  where 
they  won't  see  us." 

She  stepped  back  into  the  darkness.  I  slipped  my  arm 
about  her  and  we  circled  off  into  the  bow,  dimly  lit  by  the 
side  lanterns  and  the  riding  light  high  on  the  mast  above 
us.  As  I  held  her  I  was  very  conscious  of  her  physical 
nearness,  of  the  long  smooth  lines  of  her  shoulders  gleam- 
ing in  the  darkness,  the  soft  curve  of  her  arm  against 
my  sleeve,  the  recurrent  pressure  of  her  body  against  me 
as  I  swung  her  about.  We  cut  across  one  corner  of  the 
sheaf  of  light  from  the  gap  in  the  raised  awning;  her  eyes 
swung  up  to  meet  mine.  For  a  brief  instant  I  caught  a 
glimpse  of  her  smile;  then  we  entered  the  darkness  again 
and  her  face  became  a  dim  blur.  For  an  instant  I  had  a 
feeling  that  we  were  back  where  we  had  been  so  long  ago, 
looking  forward  to  life  together.  Some  old  codger  with  a 
liking  for  young  people  had  invited  us  out  to  a  dance  on 
his  yacht ;  next  week  I  would  go  to  Hatherly's  and  start 
life.  Bess  was  twenty  again  and  I  was  twenty-two. 

I  felt  a  sudden  and  fierce  renewal  of  that  old  passionate 
hunger  which  had  been  with  me  night  and  day  in  those 
times ;  the  old  sense  of  incompleteness,  of  living  a  half  life, 
came  over  me  again.  The  impression  lasted  but  a  mo- 
ment; for  the  briefest  possible  space  of  time  I  forgot  all 
that  had  happened  in  the  intervening  years. 

"You  were  talking  about  me?"  she  asked,  and  I  came 
out  of  my  dream. 

"Who?"  I  managed  to  ask. 

"You  and  Mrs.  Fairleigh."  She  leaned  back  and 
glanced  up  at  me.  "Talking  about  my  dress?  It's  out 
of  style,  I  know." 

"No;  that's  all  right."     We  avoided  a  deck  chair  by 


898  FLOOD  TIDE 

a  narrow  margin.  "Very  much  all  right.  I  never  im- 
agined you — well,  as  having  arms  and  shoulders  before." 

"I  am  somewhat  outdoors."  She  released  one  arm  and 
hitched  up  the  slender  gold  chain  over  one  shoulder.  "But 
you  like  it?  Don't  talk,  please."  With  eyes  half  closed 
she  hummed  a  low,  throaty  accompaniment  to  the  music. 
We  were  near  the  rail  when  the  music  ceased  and  the  low 
murmer  of  the  surf  on  the  rocks  beyond  the  Point  again 
became  audible.  I  dropped  my  arm  slightly  and  we 
waited  for  it  to  start  again. 

"Give  us  something  beside  church  music,"  came  a  voice 
— Isham's — from  behind  the  awning. 

"They're  all  opera  records,"  we  heard  the  reply;  then, 
"Ah !  here's  one  with  some  pep  in  it,"  followed  by  the  first 
bars  of  a  record  which  Kavenaugh  had  bought  in  New 
York — one  of  these  compositions  with  tom-toms  and  cym- 
bals in  it. 

Bess  laughed  and  slipped  away  from  me.  "We  can't 
dance  to  that,"  she  said,  and  drew  out  a  deck  chair.  I 
seated  myself  beside  her  and  we  gazed  out  over  the 
scattered  lights  of  the  harbor. 

"Yes,"  I  said  suddenly. 

She  looked  at  me  inquiringly.    "Yes,  what?" 

I  had  spoken  half  to  myself.  "I  was  trying  to  remem- 
ber the  last  time  you  and  I  danced  together — at  the  town 
hall,  wasn't  it?  And  we  pulled  a  settee  up  to  one  of  the 
windows  in  the  balcony  and  looked  out  over  the  Square. 
Do  you  remember  that?" 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "Let's  drop  this  'do  you 
remember'  strain,"  she  said  suddenly.  "It's  getting  on 
my  nerves.  How  many  times  have  you  said  that  this 
week,  do  you  remember?" 

She  bit  her  lips  in  vexation.  "There  it  is  again,  you 
see.  I'm  contracting  the  habit  myself.  Let's  drop  it," 

"You  want  to  forget,  then?"  I  blurted. 

She  considered,  leaning  forward  with  her  chin  on  her 
hand.  I  glanced  aside  and  caught  the  clear  outline  of 


FLOOD  TII)K  MM) 

her  profile  against  I  lie  li^hl,  the  lonj(,  clean  Nweep  of  tier 
throat ;  I  fell  .1    .in  Mi  ii  contraction  of  my  In  MI  I 

"Hardly  lluil,"  nlie  aiiNWered  finally  Sn  it  low  voice. 
"There'M  no  Ilivcr  Lethe,  you  know.  If  I  here  WUN 

Mi  •  l''.i  1 1  l<  i"li  appeared  in  I  lie  opening  of  the  awning, 
blinked  a  moment  in  (lie  durkiicMH,  nnd  then,  ptrotiving 
UN,  drew  buck. 

"Come  oid,"  called  HCHH,  Mmilin/j  up  ill  her.  "We're 
wall  flowers,  making  acid  LI.  of  the  more  forlimalc. 
1'nli  ...  you  want  lo  lx>  talked  ahoul 

She  pulled  out  another  chair  und  moved  ha<'k  from  the 
rail. 

"(iod  forbid!"  ..ml  Mi  l''a!rleij^h  fervently,  |ilumpin^; 
down  and  fanning  herHelf.  t4My  reputation  won't,  uland 
it.  You're  the  only  Heimible  per.soiiH  aboard;  it'n  Nheer 
criminality  to  dance  in  Much  weather.  What  were.  \">i 
1 .1 1 1  in"  uboul  ?" 

"About  a  mythical  river,'*  I  said  and  turned  to  Hi  MM. 
' ^  nil  were  MlUining  the  exiltencc  of  luch  a  Ntre/im.  Sup' 
j)OHe  it  (Jid  exiwtP" 

I  \\.<    .li  u -i  in i in  < I  to  have  an  answer,  (JeHpile  All  .    l-'.m 
|i  i"l/  .   interference.      Hut   lOli/abelh  evaded   me. 

"You  could  bottle  it.  'i'here'M  million.'!  in  it,"  xh(? 
replied. 

Mrw.  l«'airlei^h  W/AH  myitifled,  "Hut  where  in  \.\\\H 
river?" 

<<r!Miat'H  |n  .1  it;  no  one  knoww.  I  thought  once  that  it 
run  into  the  nea;  perhapN  it  doen,  but  I  haven't  been  able 
to  find  it." 

"Fairy  talcM  I"  nhu  ncoffVd  at  my  explanation,  "Hut 
you  remind  mo  that  I'm  Mm  i  y  You  haven't  .u.  I.  a 
tiling  aH  piuutli  or  ice  cream  on  board,  haver  you?" 

"There'll  Home,  cream,  I  think.  Hut  it'*  very  fat- 
tening," I  luggeftad  maliciouMly, 

"I  can  utaiuJ  it,"  i»he  nuid  rcHi^nedly.  "I've  lout  five 
pound:,  und  can  afford  to  take  on  a  few  more,  diet  me 
Home,  pleuHc." 


300  FLOOD  TIDE 

I  went  below  and  routed  out  the  steward,  pausing  on 
the  way  to  curse  Mrs.  Fairleigh  heartily  for  her  untimely 
intrusion.  I  returned  to  find  that  Isham  had  joined  them, 
waving  a  glowing  cigar  and  comparing  Whitehaven  in 
derogatory  fashion  with  Mediterranean  ports.  He  pre- 
ferred the  latter,  I  gathered.  "That,  for  instance,"  he 
said,  and  waved  a  glowing  arc  toward  the  clustered  black 
masses  of  the  wharves  on  the  town  side.  "They  wouldn't 
allow  that  sort  of  thing  over  there."  .  Isham  had  no  great 
love  for  things  cis-Atlantic — his  own  phrase — and  took 
great  pains  to  make  his  distaste  clear.  Mrs.  Fairleigh 
ate  and  hesitated  and  ate  again  with  a  furtive  air,  paus- 
ing now  and  again  to  remind  Isham  of  something  he  had 
omitted  from  what  was  evidently  an  often  rehearsed  story. 
He  and  Bess  became  involved  in  a  discussion  involving 
some  phase  of  French  railway  service — she  had  been 
abroad  with  Learoyd,  I  already  knew  from  Captain  Wal- 
dron.  And  I  sat  glumly  listening,  outside  of  it  all. 

I  had  no  further  chance  to  speak  with  Bess  alone  that 
evening.  I  avoided  it.  I  had  been  on  the  edge  of  doing 
something  unpremeditated,  and  wanted  a  chance  to  think 
it  over.  It  was  nearly  midnight  when  the  party  broke 
up;  we  went  ashore  in  the  tender  and  Isham  took  us 
around  from  the  Point  in  his  car.  We  left  Bess  at  her 
gate  and  I  returned  alone  to  the  Shadow. 

I  came  back  to  sit  and  brood  in  the  darkness.  That 
thrill  as  I  held  Bess  in  my  arms  warned  me  that  I  was 
drifting  into  something  that  I  should  avoid.  I  had  no 
right  to  fall  in  love  with  Bess  again.  I  had  been  drifting 
for  a  week  now,  I  recognized,  and  it  seemed  time  to  reckon 
up  and  take  a  fresh  departure.  I  had  drifted  on  a 
strange  coast,  a  pleasant  one,  but  one  which  was  not  on 
the  course  which  I  had  planned.  I  had  better  leave  White- 
haven  as  soon  as  possible — to-morrow,  I  decided.  I 
would  see  Bess  in  the  morning  and  tell  her.  Tell  her  not 
my  reasons,  but  the  simple  fact  that  I  was  going.  I 
would  go  on  and  carry  out  my  plans. 


FLOOD  TIDE  301 

I  peopled  the  semicircle  of  chairs  with  their  vanished 
occupants  and  asked  their  opinions.  I  was  not  quite  sure 
of  myself  and  I  wanted  their  help,  even  visionary  help 
would  be  of  some  use.  Isham,  with  the  thin  wet  lines 
of  hair  combed  across  his  lucent  forehead,  advised  me  to 
stay. 

"Not  so  bad  here,"  I  caught  a  faint  whisper  of  his 
booming  drawl.  "If  you're  going  anywhere  I  should 
advise  you  to  cross  the  pond.  The  English  ports  are 
very  pleasant  at  this  season." 

He  misunderstood.  It  was  not  a  question  of  places  but 
of  two  women.  His  shadow  regarded  me  dubiously  and 
refused  to  answer. 

I  turned  to  the  chair  which  had  held  Mrs.  Fairleigh 
and  found  no  consolation  there.  "Oh,  stay  along,"  she 
said.  "You're  promised  for  Wednesday  and  can't  go 
anyway." 

She  vanished. 

The  soft  padding  of  bare  feet  broke  the  silence,  and 
Karl  appeared,  clearing  way  the  debris  of  the  party. 
The  sudden  glow  of  my  cigar  startled  him ;  with  a  mut- 
tered apology  he  went  on  with  his  work.  He  carried 
away  the  wraith  of  Mrs.  Fairleigh,  for  once  mute  and 
unprotesting ;  Isham  was  folded  up  and  laid  one  side. 
He  approached  the  third  chair. 

"I'll  tend  to  that  one,  Karl,"  I  said.  "Better  go  be- 
low and  turn  in.  You  can  do  this  in  the  morning." 

He  passed  on  forward  and  vanished.  We  sat  alone, 
the  shadow  of  Bess  and  myself;  a  chill  little  wind  sprang 
up  and  broke  the  long  pillars  of  red  and  green  light  into 
flakes  and  fragments  of  flashing  color  on  the  harbor  floor. 
The  late  moon  rose  over  the  black  masses  of  the  Point  as 
we  sat  in  silent  communion ;  an  old  moon,  stretching  forth 
ineffectual  arms  to  embrace  the  shining  past.  Just  as  I 
had  been. 

I  rose  and  stood  a  moment  over  the  vacant  chair  be- 
side me. 


302  FLOOD  TIDE 

"You  made  your  decision  once ;  I'm  making  mine  now," 
I  said  to  myself,  and  folded  up  the  chair  and  went  below. 


vm 

I  went  ashore  in  the  morning  to  tell  Elizabeth  that  I 
must  leave  that  day,  shrinking  from  it  and  yet  knowing 
that  it  was  the  only  thing  to  do.  I  had  already  sent  a 
note  to  Mrs.  Fairleigh,  pleading  a  sudden  telegram  as  the 
reason  for  my  unexpected  departure.  There  was  no 
backing  out  now.  I  had  written  a  similar  note  to  Eliza- 
beth, written  it  and  frowned  over  it  and  at  last  torn  it 
up  and  thrown  the  fragments  through  the  porthole.  It 
seemed  unfair  to  treat  her  in  so  cavalier  a  manner.  I 
adhered  to  my  orignal  determination  of  telling  her  myself. 

I  found  the  house  deserted.  The  gray  kitten  peered 
at  me  from  the  shelter  of  a  chair  and  then  came  forward 
to  rub  against  my  legs ;  she  arched  her  back  to  be 
scratched  and  followed  me  out  through  the  kitchen. 
Through  the  rear  window  I  saw  a  glint  of  moving  color 
under  the  low  arches  of  the  apple  trees.  We  went  out 
together,  the  kitten  running  ahead  of  me  down  the  trod- 
den path,  looking  back  at  me  and  making  private  ex- 
cursions into  the  grass  on  either  side  in  pursuit  of 
grasshoppers  and  other  big  game. 

Bess  was  feeding  the  chickens  which  she  had  housed 
in  our  old  "Piruts*  Lare" — a  late  hatch,  for  the  kitten 
and  sundry  of  his  acquaintances  had  made  a  Roman 
holiday  of  the  first  brood.  The  little  fluffy  yellow  balls 
ran  about  her  feet  as  she  showered  grain  on  them  from 
an  earthen  bowl;  the  kitten  spied  them  as  we  noiselessly 
drew  near  and  lost  interest  in  grasshoppers.  He  crouched 
low  with  twitching  hindquarters,  then  sprang  at  one  which 
had  wandered  from  the  main  flock.  The  chicken  shrieked 
in  fright  and  fled  with  outstretched  wings ;  the  kitten, 
equally  surprised  and  frightened,  fled  in  the  opposite 


FLOOD  TIDE  303 

direction,  scrambled  up  a  tree  and  glared  down  with 
yellow  eyes. 

"James!"  said  Bess  reprovingly.  "Didn't  I  lock  you 
in  the  house?"  She  turned,  saw  me  and  smiled. 

"You  put  him  up  to  that,"  she  accused. 

"Indeed  I  didn't,"  I  protested.  "That  was  solely  his 
own  idea." 

James  descended  and  was  forgiven  and  hid  behind  the 
folds  of  Elizabeth's  dress,  eyeing  the  chickens  with  an 
air  of  high  indifference. 

"You  enjoyed  last  night?"  I  asked  as  she  resumed  her 
scattering  of  grain. 

"Immensely,"  she  said,  and  stifled  a  yawn.  She 
laughed.  "I'm  sleepy;  don't  misinterpret.  I  really  did 
enjoy  it." 

"I  hoped  you  would." 

"I  haven't  been  to  anything  of  that  sort  for — it  must 
be  nearly  five  years,"  she  said  reminiscently.  "Do  you 
realize  how  much  you've  shaken  me  out  of  my  regular  way 
of  living?" 

"Do  you  regret  it?" 

"No,"  she  considered,  and  was  silent  for  a  moment, 
dribbling  out  the  yellow  grain  between  her  fingers.  "But 
you'll  be  going  away  soon  and  I'll  get  back  into  it." 

"I "  This  was  my  chance  to  tell  her  that  I  was 

going  to-day.  It  had  seemed  marvelously  easy  last  night ; 
now,  in  her  presence,  it  seemed  a  most  difficult  thing  to 
say.  "No  matter,"  I  said  in  answer  to  her  questioning 
look. 

"Watch!"  she  said  suddenly  and  stooped  over  the 
chickens  with  a  sudden  graceful  gesture.  "Krrrrrr!"  she 
trilled.  There  was  a  scurrying  and  scattering,  a  twinkle 
of  yellow  legs  and  not  a  chicken  was  to  be  seen,  save  one 
little  fellow  who  ran  about  in  circles,  setting  up  a  most 
piteous  clamor.  Bess  held  out  her  hands  and  he  ran  into 
them,  snuggling  down  and  cheeping  contentedly. 

She  lifted  him  for  my  inspection.    "This  is  Horatius — 


304  FLOOD  TIDE 

'whence  all  but  he  had  fled,'  you  know.  Poor  dear,  he's 
lost  one  eye."  Horatius  cocked  his  remaining  eye  at  me 
belligerently,  pecked  at  her  fingernail,  and  looked  forth 
on  the  world  in  vast  satisfaction. 

"Silly  things,"  she  commented.  "They  think  the  sky 
is  falling."  I  watched  her  as  she  leaned  over  and  coaxed 
them  out  with '  reassuring  noises.  The  morning  sun  sent 
down  little  lance  shafts  of  gold  between  the  leaves  of  the 
trees ;  her  figure,  as  she  leaned  over,  was  dappled  with 
alternate  light  and  shadow.  Many  of  my  remembrances 
of  her  are  indistinct  half-visualizations,  but  this  memory 
stands  out  with  noonday  clearness.  I  recall  every  line 
and  sweep  of  her  dress,  swirling  and  blending  into  the 
grass  as  she  knelt  on  one  knee,  tempting  the  scattered 
legions  from  their  retirement.  One  ray  of  sunshine  struck 
her  hair  and  sunk  a  shaft  of  pure  gold  through  the  coils. 
Over  her  shoulder  I  saw  Horatius  peer  out  from  between 
her  curled  forefinger  and  thumb  and  peck  valiantly  to 
show  the  more  timorous  that  there  was  nothing  to 
fear.  .  .  . 

I  find  this  the  most  difficult  part  of  my  story  to  write. 
Difficult  because  I  cannot  explain  it.  I  can  explain  neither 
my  previous  blindness  nor  the  great  flare  which  lit  up  my 
inner  being  as  I  stood  looking  down  on  Elizabeth.  I  be- 
came aware  of  a  vast  and  intolerable  ache  within  me; 
a  sudden  longing  which  transcended  any  sensation  I  had 
ever  known.  It  was  an  engulfing  and  overwhelming  desire, 
of  torturing  poignancy ;  Bess  was  the  one  woman  who  had 
ever  mattered  or  ever  would  matter  in  my  life.  I  had 
known  this  and  sought  to  conceal  it  even  from  myself; 
I  had  no  doubts  now.  All  the  barriers  which  I  had 
erected  were  swept  away;  my  resolution  of  the  night  be- 
fore vanished.  It  became  the  squeaking  and  gobbering  of 
a  bloodless  creature  who  had  deliberately  shut  his  eyes  to 
the  truth ;  it  became  the  maundering  of  a  poor  emas- 
culated being  whose  actions  were  directed  by  unreason. 

But  when  I  spoke  the  man  of  the  night  before  was  still 


FLOOD  TIDE  305 

in  control — for  a  bare  moment;  he  spoke,  and  was  then 
swirled  away  never  to  reappear. 

"Yes,"  I  said.  Had  she  glanced  up  I  must  have  cried 
out  in  agony.  With  an  effort  I  went  on.  "I'm  going 
away  soon — to-day."  I  paused  again  and  wrenched  con- 
trol from  this  blindworm  creature  who  had  ruled  me  so 
long.  The  effort  brought  tears  to  my  eyes.  "Will  you 
come  with  me?" 

The  only  sign  that  Elizabeth  had  heard  was  an  invol- 
untary contraction  of  her  hand ;  the  flow  of  grain  ceased. 
She  remained  immobile  for  a  long  moment,  then  turned 
her  head  slowly  and  looked  up  at  me. 

"Marry  me,  I  mean,"  I  went  on  dully.  "I  want  you." 
There  seemed  nothing  more  to  say. 

Still  she  failed  to  answer. 

"Can't  we  start  over  again,  Bess — patch  things  up 
and  go  on  from  where  we  left  off?" 

She  rose  slowly  and  regarded  me  with  level  eyes.  There 
was  no  doubt,  no  confusion  in  her  ga/e,  only  an  intense 
and  searching  scrutiny. 

"I  need  you — I  have  needed  you  all  these  years,"  I 
went  on  desperately,  regaining  my  voice.  "I  was  a  fool 
once,  let  me  make  up  for  it  now." 

She  shook  her  head.     "You  can't." 

"I  know;  these  things  are  past  all  remedy.  Can't  we 
forget  them  and  start  afresh?" 

"If  we  only  could!"  I  barely  caught  the  words. 

"Why  not?  Are  we  to  be  bound  all  our  lives  by  the 
blindness  of  those  two  so  long  ago?  They  are  dead,  our 
old  selves,  and  better  forgotten." 

"Not  dead ;  we  can  forget  the  dead."  She  turned  from 
me  and  spoke  over  her  shoulder. 

"I've  been  blind  for  so  long,  Bess,  and  I  see  it  now. 
"I  have  always  wanted  you — always  loved  you  and  always 
shall."  I  was  still  dazed  by  the  suddenness  of  my  out- 
burst and  could  only  reiterate  my  intense  longing. 
"Bess !"  I  cried. 


306  FLOOD  TIDE 

She  shook  her  averted  head.    "No ;  I  can't." 

"You  can't?"     That  was  my  answer,  then.     "Why?"' 

"Don't  you  see  that  it  would  be  just  a  patching  up?" 
she  said  slowly,  still  turned  away  from  me.  "The  same 
old  difficulties  with  new  ones  added?  We've  changed  a 
good  deal — more  than  either  of  us  realize,  perhaps." 

"You  haven*t  changed." 

"I  have;  and  so  have  you." 

I  made  impatient  and  no  doubt  absurd  gestures.  This 
was  a  side  issue.  But:  "For  better  or  worse?"  I  asked. 

She  looked  at  me  searchingly.  "I  scarcely  know,"  she 
said.  As  she  turned  I  saw  that  her  eyes  were  misty  with 
tears.  "For  the  better  in  some  things,  perhaps,  and  in 
others — not  changed  at  all." 

"Not  changed  in  one  thing.  I  still  love  you,"  I  per- 
sisted. 

She  thought  for  a  moment  with  downcast  eyes.  "Yes, 
I  think  you  do — I  know  you  do.  But  is  that  everything? 
Isn't  it  possible  to  love  a  person  and  still  see  the  utter 
impossibility  of  marriage?  I  know  that  neither  of  us 
would  be  any  happier  for  it.  We  never  agreed  on  any- 
thing; we  never  shall.  .  .  .  I'm  afraid — just  that,  afraid. 
Selfish,  too,  perhaps." 

"You  were  not  afraid  once." 

"No.  But  I'm  wiser  now.  I  know  enough  to  be  afraid. 
I  know  how  hard,  how  impossible  it  would  be  for  you 
and  me  to  get  along  together.  We  couldn't — we're  sel- 
fish, both  of  us,  unwilling  to  concede.  For  a  while,  per- 
haps— but  in  the  end  it  would  mean  unhappiness  for  us 
both.  I've  had  enough  unhappiness  in  my  life."  She 
spoke  in  dry,  hard  phrases,  paused  for  a  moment  and 
then  went  on  passionately.  "Don't  you  see  ?  We  couldn't 
agree  before — could  we  agree  now  that  we  have  grown 
still  further  apart?  Why  won't  you  see  it?" 

I  tried,  and  failed.  "You  expect  too  much,"  I  said. 
"No  two  are  in  perfect  agreement  on  everything." 

"I  know.    If  it  was  a  matter  of  mere  trivial  differences 


FLOOD  TIDE  307 

— but  it  goes  deeper  than  that.  We  had  different  ideals 
of  life  twelve  years  ago ;  have  we  drawn  any  closer  since 
then?  Or  further  apart?  It  isn't  a  surface  difference, 
it's  fundamental.  We  can't  help  it." 

"Then  this  is  your  ideal  of  life,  living  here  in  this 
fashion?"  Some  of  the  contempt  which  I  had  always 
felt  for  Whitehaven  crept  into  my  voice. 

"Not  exactly,"  she  said,  "but  it's  nearer  to  it  than 
what  you  offer.  I'm  contented  here,  not  happy,  perhaps, 
but  fairly  contented.  I  know,  'content  with  little  things' 
as  you  said.  Not  so  easy  as  you  imagined,  however. 
Before  you  came — but  that's  selfish.  ...  I  wish  you 
hadn't  brought  this  up ;  I  tried  to  avoid  it.  It  would  have 
been  hard  to  get  back,  after  you  had  gone ;  now  it  will  be 
harder  still." 

She  made  a  gesture  of  finality.  "You  said  that  you 
were  going  to-day?"  she  said  evenly. 

"You're  not  going  back  to  this  poverty  stricken  life," 
I  said,  almost  angrily.  "I  won't  let  you."  I  swung  her 
around,  then  drew  her  close  to  me,  my  arms  about  her. 
She  neither  resisted  nor  responded;  I  held  her  close  for  a 
moment,  her  head  drooped  back  with  a  bar  of  sunlight 
across  her  dear  face ;  her  eyes  were  half  veiled  and  a  faint 
shadow  of  a  smile  lingered  about  the  corners  of  her 
mouth.  Only  for  a  moment;  then  the  monstrous  futility 
of  my  desire  came  to  me  with  sudden  force  and  I  dropped 
my  arms.  She  made  no  motion  to  free  herself,  but  stood 
as  I  left  her.  Her  eyes  opened  slowly,  not  chilling  blue 
as  they  had  been  a  moment  before,  but  filled  with  a  soft 
and  impersonal  regret. 

"No,"  she  said  quietly.  "You  can't  change  me  that 
way.  Twelve  years  ago  you  might  have,  but  not  now." 

She  took  another  handful  of  grain  and  sent  small 
golden  showers  over  the  backs  of  the  chickens.  "Shall  we 
drop  this?"  she  asked.  "It's  no  use,  you  see." 

"I  have  been  mistaken  all  week,"  I  said  wearily.  "I 
thought  that  you  still  loved  me." 


308  FLOOD  TIDE 

"  You  are  mistaken  in  many  things,"  she  said  in  a  low 
voice.  "But  not  that.  I  do  love  you,  as  much  as  I  ever 
did.  But  it's  different.  Is  it  ever  possible  to  love  a 
person  with  open  eyes?  To  love  him  completely — beyond 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt?  .  .  .  It's  a  curious  sort  of  love — 
I  love  you  and  want  to  be  near  you — all  these  years  I 
haven't  forgotten  you — and  yet  I  won't  marry  you? 
Why?  Because  I  have  no  illusions  about  marriage,  I 
suppose.  No  illusions  about  anything.  You  have,  and  I 
envy  you.  Marriage  isn't  a  solution.  It  seemed  so 
once —  Her  voice  dropped  away  into  silence  and 

when  she  spoke  again  it  was  with  a  different  intonation. 
"It  was  a  solution  then.  Why  couldn't  we  have  seen  at 
first  that  we  were  growing  apart  with  every  day?  We 
might  have  worked  matters  out,  even  fought  them  out, 
and  come  to  some  sort  of  a  solution.  But  now — too  late." 

"I  have  everything  that  you  wanted  then,"  I  offered. 
I  found  a  faint  hope  springing  up  within  me. 

"I  know — but  you  don't  consider  that  I  may  not  want 
them  now.  You  think  that  I  haven't  changed,  that  I'm 
still  a  silly  girl  in  the  twenties.  It's  flattering,  in  a  way — 
but  not  so  very  flattering  after  all.  I  don't  want  to  live 
as  you  do,  I  won't,  I'm  not  fitted  for  it." 

"We  could  live  here."     I  clutched  at  this  solution. 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  she  said  with  a  slight  touch  of 
sarcasm.  "You  love  the  town,  I  know.  Neither  of  us 
would  be  happy;  I'm  contented  here  alone,  but  I  couldn't 
be  contented  with  you.  No.  We've  settled  into  lines 
and  we  can't  get  out  of  them." 

A  sudden  and  senseless  jealousy  took  possession  of  me. 
"There  is  someone  else — here?" 

"Give  me  credit  for  speaking  the  truth,  at  least,"  she 
said  bitterly. 

My  persistency,  my  blindness,  my  awkwardness  must 
have  hurt  her  immensely.  But  I  kept  on:  "Is  it  Learoyd, 
then?" 

"Still   bound   by   his   memory,   you   mean?"      She  in- 


FLOOD  TIDE  309 

spected  me  gravely.  "Yes,  partly  that.  .  .  .  Not  as  you 
mean,  though.  I  haven't  told  you  anything  of  our  life 
together — you  don't  need  to  be  told.  It  wasn't  a  very 
happy  time.  Perhaps  that's  why  I'm  afraid." 

Her  lips  quivered  and  for  the  first  time  I  realized  that 
I  was  hurting  her.  I  tried  to  frame  some  sort  of  apology 
and  found  my  mind  a  hopeless  turmoil. 

"Have  you  ever  considered  yourself  coldly — just  stood 
off  and  looked  yourself  over?"  she  demanded  suddenly. 

"Yes.  A  good  many  times,  Bess."  I  thought  of  the 
moonlight  and  the  shadows  before  Casa  Number  Three. 

"And  acted  on  it?" 

I  nodded. 

"And  found  yourself  right?"  she  went  on  steadily. 

"No.    Anything  but  right." 

She  was  silent  for  a  space.  "I've  found  it  just  the 
same  way,"  she  said  finally.  "Just  the  same.  After  Phil 
— died.  You  don't  know  anything  about  that." 

"I  don't  want  to,"  I  answered.    "That  doesn't  matter." 

She  ignored  my  statement.  "That  was  the  first  time 
that  I'd  ever  been  free  to  do  as  I  chose,"  she  went  on. 
"I  wanted  to  do  something,  to  make  something  out  of  my 
life.  You  don't  know  how  I  wanted  to  do  something 
worth  while.  Oh,  I  tried ;  I  had  a  little  money  left,  and 
I  tried  it  for  nearly  two  years.  I  wanted  to  do  some- 
thing— anything,  just  so  I  could  respect  myself.  And 
I  lost  what  little  self-respect  I'd  ever  had."  She  stopped 
and  laughed.  "I  couldn't  even  hold  a  place  long  enough 
to  get  started.  My  training,  I  suppose — if  I  ever  had 
any  training.  Or  inheritance.  I  don't  know  which.  My 
father,  a  visionary  ne'er-do-well ;  my  mother,  a  vacillating 
nonentity;  myself — what  you  might  expect.  I  had  the 
desire,  as  my  father  had,  but  I  couldn't  quite  do  things. 
I  always  seemed  to  fall  just  short  of  that.  Little  Polish 
and  Jew  girls  learned  faster  than  I  did,  and  did  better 
work.  I  was  just  too  old  to  learn  and  not  old  enough 
for  an  old  ladies'  home.  I  tried  everything.  For  a  time 


310  FLOOD  TIDE 

I  was  cashier  in  one  of  your  stores;  you  didn't  know 
that.  A  failure,  of  course;  I  messed  things  horribly. 
.  .  .  You  see  why  I  came  back  here?  And  why  I'm  con- 
tented to  stay  here?" 

"I  don't  see,"  I  said  stubbornly. 

"I'm  a  failure,  a  failure  in  everything,"  she  said.  "I'd 
be  a  failure  as  your  wife." 

"I  don't  see,"  I  reiterated  helplessly. 

She  lost  patience.  "That's  just  it,  you  don't  see  and 
you  never  would  see  my  reasons.  Life  together  would  be 
just  one  compromise  after  another.  You're  too  selfish  to 
see  why  I  can't  do  as  you  wish. 

"Forgive  me,"  she  went  on  quickly.  "We're  both  sel- 
fish; perhaps  I'm  more  so  than  you.  I  suppose  I've  been 
encouraging  you  all  this  week,  out  of  pure  selfishness.  I 
should  have  known  that  it  would  come  to  this.  I  saw  it 
last  night  when  Mrs.  Fairleigh  interrupted  you.  And 
when  I  saw  you  this  morning — I  knew." 

"I  came  this  morning  to  tell  you  that  I  was  going — 
just  that.  The  rest  I  couldn't  help.  I  wanted  to  avoid 
that,  too." 

"You  too?     Why?     You  saw  that  it  was  impossible 

but ?"     Her  eyes  darkened  and  she  frowned.     "You 

asked  me  out  of  pity,  then?" 

"Not  that,  Bess.  I  didn't  realize.  I  thought  that  I 
could  go  away  and  forget.  But  I  can't — I  can't."  I 
refused  to  consider  that. 

"You  must,"  she  said. 

"Mrs.  Fairleigh  told  you?"  I  said  dully. 

"About  what?" 

I  remembered  then  that  Mrs.  Fairleigh  had  merely 
voiced  a  suspicion  of  my  interest  in  Lauretta.  I  stumbled 
on  blindly. 

"About  Lauretta  Annersley?" 

"No." 
"We  were  engaged." 


FLOOD  TIDE  311 

She  contemplated  me  for  a  moment  in  doubt.  "You 
had  a  right.  You've  not  been  tied  to  me." 

"We  are  engaged,"  I  said  desperately. 

I  wanted  to  explain  how  I  had  wished  to  avoid  this ;  how 
I  had  debated  with  myself  the  night  before.  I  wanted  to 
explain  the  whole  affair — and  remained  silent  while  she 
looked  at  me. 

"Oh !"  she  said  in  a  surprised  little  voice.  She  bit  her 
lips  and  groped  for  words.  "I  thought  that  I  knew  you 
— but  this  is  worse.  I  seemed  more  desirable,  I  suppose. 
You  should  have  told  me  before." 

"I  suppose  so." 

"You  should  have."  She  dropped  her  eyes  and  went 
on  in  a  low  voice.  "If  I  had  yielded — without  knowing 
this — did  you  consider  that?" 

I  was  conscious  of  an  immense  weariness.  "I  think 
that  I  considered  it  after  a  fashion  last  night,"  I  an- 
swered. "This  morning  I  considered  nothing  save  that  I 
love  you.  Nothing  else  matters." 

She  stood  silent  for  a  long  time,  building  little  heaps  of 
grain  in  the  yellow  bowl,  flattening  them  out  and  then 
building  them  up  anew.  Once  or  twice  she  started  to 
speak ;  she  looked  up  at  me,  then  her  lips  quivered  and  she 
looked  down  again. 

"I  think  you  had  better  go,"  she  said  finally.  "You 
have  behaved  abominably  all  week.  So  have  I.  But  I 
didn't  know —  You'd  better  go  before  I  say  things 
that  I  will  regret." 

She  was  on  the  verge  of  tears,  like  a  hurt  child.  I  had 
hurt  her  immensely  by  my  colossal  selfishness ;  had  I  tried 
deliberately  I  could  have  hurt  her  no  more. 

"Go  away,"  she  said  brokenly,  and  turned  away  to  hide 
her  face  from  me.  "I  can't  stand  it.  Go  away." 

I  made  a  clumsy  effort  at  speech  and  then  stopped, 
inarticulate.  Everything  I  said  seemed  to  make  matters 
worse.  Without  farewell  I  went  up  the  path. 

I  looked  back  as  I  turned  blindly  into  the  street.     I 


312  FLOOD  TIDE 

don't  know — I  suppose  that  I  turned  with  the  vague  hope 
that  she  would  stretch  her  arms  out  after  me  in  longing 
and  regret.  Hope  is  a  thing  of  marvelous  resiliency. 

I  saw  her  for  an  instant  down  between  the  gray  aisles 
of  tree  trunks,  but  her  back  was  turned.  Just  a  glimpse 
I  had  of  her  tall,  straight  figure;  I  caught  the  glint  of 
showered  grain  and  the  moving  about  of  yellow  dots  in 
the  shadow  at  her  feet.  Then  the  barberry  hedge  inter- 
vened and  I  set  my  face  toward  the  Shadow. 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 


"WELL,  that's  ended,"  I  thought  savagely,  just  as  I 
had  twelve  years  before.  And,  just  as  then,  it  was  not 
ended.  .  .  . 

I  was  dazed,  blinded,  just  as  I  had  been  long  ago;  this 
sudden  tidal  wave  of  emotion  had  left  me  stranded  help- 
lessly. I  remained  in  a  blank  daze  until  the  Shadow 
passed  beyond  the  Point  and  met  the  heave  of  the  ground 
swell.  Consciousness  returned ;  all  that  afternoon  I  paced 
up  and  down  the  narrow  cabin  like  a  silly  caged  beast, 
arguing,  remonstrating,  pausing  to  make  senseless  ges- 
tures and  then  going  on.  I  recalled  things  which  I  might 
have  said,  arguments  which  I  might  have  made.  As 
though  arguments  would  have  mattered !  My  argument 
came  in  sterile  and  shabby  little  rushes ;  silences  were  suc- 
ceeded by  tag  ends  and  fragments  of  remonstrance,  plead- 
ing, brow-beating  statements.  I  recalled  every  objection 
of  hers  and  anwered  them  again.  Not  that  it  mattered 
now,  I  knew,  but  I  tried  to  justify  myself,  to  convince 
myself  that  I  was  right  and  she  was  wrong. 

"Fool !  To  tell  her  of  Lauretta !"  I  remember  shouting. 
"There  was  no  need  of  that."  I  had  a  fleeting  per- 
ception of  how  low  I  had  fallen,  paused,  and  then  switched 
violently  to  some  other  point. 

I  went  around  the  great  rock  of  her  refusal,  trying  to 
pry  it  from  my  road  with  phantom  toothpicks.  "You 
know  this;  you  must  know  this!  Good  God,  why  won't 
you  see  it?"  I  fought  to  keep  from  seeing  myself  as 
Elizabeth  must  have  seen  me — selfish,  stubborn,  filled 
with  an  intolerant  self  pride.  All  my  banderlogic — and  I 
must  have  gone  on  for  hours — was  only  an  attempt  to 
313 


314  FLOOD  TIDE 

convince  myself.  I  failed.  However  I  expounded,  re- 
peated, contradicted  myself  in  a  weird  saraband  of 
tenuous  argument,  the  fact  of  her  refusal  remained,  in- 
disputable, staring. 

I  did  foolish  things,  as  the  great  mirror  in  the  cabin 
testified  before  I  smashed  it. 

"You  grinning  ape!"  I  said,  staring  at  my  reflection, 
and  drove  at  it  with  a  bronze  paper  weight.  It  stared  in- 
to blackness  and  the  crash  and  tinkle  of  falling  glass 
awoke  me.  I  surveyed  the  ruins  stupidly  for  a  moment, 
fumbled  around  among  the  fragments  of  glass  and  cut  my 
hand.  A  faint  realization  of  my  madness  came  to  me. 
I  locked  the  door  on  the  wreckage  and  went  on  deck. 

The  Shadow  was  headed  inshore,  under  a  gray  and  low- 
ering sky.  Steel  gray  seas  shouldered  by  overside,  flawed 
and  blurred  by  transitory  gusts  of  cold  rain.  The  shore 
loomed  blue  in  the  distance,  gleamed  in  sunshine  for  a 
moment  under  a  slow  moving  break  in  the  clouds,  and 
then  faded  and  receded  as  the  rain  closed  in. 

"Id  will  blow,"  said  Bergson  over  his  shoulder.  "There 
were  storm  signals  at  Whidehaven  as  we  left.  Better  we 
should  run  in." 

My  mind  caught  and  held  his  last  words.  Run  in? 
I  had  always  run  in ;  always  avoided  strife,  a  fair  weather 
sailor  all  my  life.  Run  in?  To  do  what?  To  mope 
about,  to  think.  God ! 

"How  much  gas  have  you,  Kav?"  I  called  down  the 
tube. 

"Full  tanks,"  came  the  answer. 

"I'll  take  the  wheel,"  I  said  to  Bergson.  He  abandoned 
it  reluctantly.  Under  my  guidance  the  Shadow  swerved, 
took  a  wave  over  the  side,  staggered  and  came  about, 
headed  out  into  the  open  sea.  Bergson  looked  at  me, 
shook  his  head,  and  went  below.  .  .  . 

There  my  memory  blurs  and  runs  together  into  a  gray 
puddle.  I  remember  the  clouds  ahead,  lit  for  a  time  by  a 
pale  reflection  of  the  sunset  behind  us;  I  remember  the 


FLOOD  TIDE  315 

clouds  thickening  and  coming  lower  and  the  rain  in- 
creasing in  heavier  guests  which  blotted  out  the  horizon. 
Night  came  on  and  I  held  the  Shadow  on  a  drunken  and 
wabbly  course  out  into  the  storm. 

It  was  foolish  rather  than  dramatic.  I  suppose  I 
should  say  that  I  fought  against  the  power  of  the  sea, 
shouted  defiances,  worked  myself  up  into  a  berserker 
mood.  In  reality  it  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  had  some- 
thing of  that  idea  when  I  headed  out,  but  with  the  closing 
in  of  night  I  lost  it. 

If  I  had  any  purpose  at  all  in  running  out  to  sea,  it 
was  to  keep  myself  from  thinking.  I  was  successful  in 
that.  There  was  no  chance  to  think;  the  necessity  of 
keeping  the  Shadow  head  on  to  the  seas  kept  me  mentally 
taut,  shut  out  every  other  thought.  The  seas  came  in 
ceaseless  procession,  looming  out  of  the  darkness  ahead, 
charging  down  and  shouldering  beneath  the  Shadow  and 
vanishing  with  an  arm  wrenching  kick  at  the  rudder. 
Then  another  sea.  And  another.  Between  every  two  I 
straightened  the  Shadow  as  well  as  I  could,  saw  her 
glistening  bow  rear,  drip,  and  plunge  again,  peered 
through  the  streaming  windows  of  the  wheel  house  and 
braced  myself  for  the  next  twist  and  heave.  It  was  a 
night  of  phantasms,  of  trying  to  stand  still  in  a  world 
which  rushed  by  in  racing  waves  and  slanting  rain  and 
shrieking  wind.  And  at  intervals  I  was  sick — sea-sick 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  Through  all  my  physical 
misery  I  was  conscious  of  a  wan  sense  of  satisfaction; 
this  was  misery,  but  at  least  it  was  preferable  to  mental 
torture. 

Certain  things  stand  out.  Once  I  let  my  mind  wander 
back  through  the  endless  hours  to  Whitehaven.  I  roused 
to  find  a  great  wall  of  gray  and  black  hanging  over  me. 
I  closed  my  eyes  as  it  crashed  down;  the  Shadow 
staggered,  and  the  tender,  lashed  on  deck,  broke  loose  and 
went  bump — bump — bump  toward  the  stern  and  vanished 
overboard.  And  toward  dawn  we  passed  a  fishing 


316  FLOOD  TIDE 

schooner,  running  before  the  wind  with  only  a  handker- 
chief of  a  sail  showing.  She  passed  close  to  port ;  I  had  a 
fleeting  glimpse  of  a  dripping  bowsprit,  of  lashed  and 
nested  dories,  of  decks  veiled  in  a  gray  smother  of  spume. 
Two  indistinct  figures  in  yellow  oilskins  wrenched  at  her 
wheel  high  in  the  lifted  stern ;  she  crashed  on  and  the  end- 
less procession1  of  seas  resumed  their  shadowy  march. 

Soon  after  this — so  it  seems  in  my  memory,  although 
it  might  have  been  a  matter  of  hours — the  wind  flattened 
and  the  rain  thinned.  The  seas,  no  longer  whipped  on, 
came  more  regularly.  I  was  tired,  inexpressibly  tired 
and  weary.  Bergson  appeared,  took  the  wheel  from  me 
despite  my  feeble  objections,  and  I  went  below  to  sleep 
the  sleep  of  the  dead.  .  .  . 

When  I  woke  a  pale  and  watery  sunshine  had  succeeded 
the  gale.  We  had  reached  one  of  the  Nova  Scotia  coast 
towns — there  was  a  malevolently  smelly  dock  close  aboard 
and  a  fringe  of  inquisitive  faces  along  the  edge  of  it.  We 
stayed  there  two  days  and  then  started  again  for  the 
Annersleys. 

But  this  served  its  purpose.  It  put  an  interval  between 
Elizabeth  and  Whitehaven  and  the  present.  When  I 
began  to  think  again  I  was  able  to  think  sanely,  or  semi- 
sanely,  at  least. 


I  must  have  disappointed  the  Annersleys.  I  was  two 
weeks  overdue  and  failed  to  make  any  satisfactory  explan- 
ations of  my  tardiness.  I  think  that  I  made  some  vague 
references  to  motor  trouble,  an  excuse  which  they 
accepted  the  more  readily  when  I  sent  the  Shadow  over 
'o  Bath  for  necessary  repairs.  I  must  have  disappointed 
them  also  in  my  account  of  Cadberry's  expedition ;  all 
Iliat  seemed  ages  ago  and  it  cost  me  a  struggle  to  recall 
many  of  the  incidents. 

I  found  them  in  a  converted  farmhouse  looking  out  over 


FLOOD  TIDE  317 

the  bay  and  the  clustered  rocky  islands.  I  have  an 
impression  of  one  great  room  on  the  ground  floor,  low- 
ceiled  and  with  a  yawning  fireplace  of  field  stone  at  either 
end.  Across  the  front  was  a  broad  porch  facing  an 
orchard  of  gnarled  and  wind-bent  apple  trees,  a  cove  with 
the  Warp  alongside  a  little  pier  and  neutral  territories 
of  salt  marsh  between  the  sea  and  land;  beyond  this  were 
the  wind-whipped  expanses  of  the  bay  and  the  low  clusters 
of  pine  topped  islands.  At  another  time  I  should  have 
found  the  place  highly  delightful.  I  find  that  I  recall  but 
little  of  it  save  what  I  set  down  here. 

I  moped  about,  sitting  for  long  hours  frowning  and 
thinking,  passively  resisting  all  efforts  to  draw  me  out. 
I  took  my  easel  out  to  lonely  places,  spent  long  hours 
alone,  and  came  back  with  still  virgin  canvases.  The 
Annersleys  were  very  kind  to  me,  much  kinder  than  I 
deserved.  After  the  first  day  or  so,  they  let  me  go  my 
own  way,  valiantly  making  pretence  that  the  business  of 
life  went  on  as  usual.  But  I  remember  that  once  or  twice 
I  found  Lauretta's  gray  eyes  fixed  on  me  with  an  ex- 
pression of  doubt  and  inquiry,  an  expression  that  vanished 
as  I  looked  up.  .  .  . 

I  was  torn  loose  from  everything  that  had  been  my 
life  to  this  time — torn  loose  mentally,  which  is  a  different 
thing  from  my  physical  isolation  at  Casa  Number  Three. 
All  the  structure  of  my  life  had  fallen  in  dust  and  ashes 
about  my  ears;  it  was  hard  to  reconstruct  and  find  the 
cause  of  the  downfall.  It  was  not  even  reconstruction  as 
yet.  I  poked  around  among  the  fragments,  still  blinded 
by  the  dust  of  the  fall,  trying  to  dig  down  and  find  some 
solid  foundation  below  this  shattered  ruin. 

It  was,  in  its  entirety,  a  period  of  alternation.  I 
swung  pendulum-wise  from  one  emotion  to  another,  from 
conclusion  to  conclusion,  seizing  passionately  upon  one 
conclusion  and  then  abandoning  it  for  a  contradictory 
one. 

My  first  feeling  was  one  of  intense  bewilderment,  of 


318  FLOOD  TIDE 

puzzled  groping  about.  I  tried  to  attack  the  question  as 
in  former  times  I  had  attacked  some  problem  relating  to 
The  Stores ;  I  tried  to  set  down  the  facts,  to  weigh  and 
analyze.  And  I  found  that  there  were  no  facts.  Love  is 
not  to  be  reduced  to  figures  and  percentages.  I  still  saw 
no  reason  for  Elizabeth's  refusal  to  marry  me.  I  went 
at  it  from  the  wrong  angle;  instead  of  asking,  "Why 
should  she?"  I  asked,  "Why  shouldn't  she?" 

In  aU  ways  I  repeated  the  process  of  twelve  years  be- 
fore. I  had  grown  no  wiser  in  the  ways  of  life — or  in  the 
ways  of  love,  which  is  the  same  thing. 

I  arrived  at  no  solution.  I  doubted  everything.  I  had 
lost  all  confidence  in  myself,  in  my  own  judgment,  in 
everything.  I  have  never  been  a  strong  man,  brutally 
instantaneous  of  decison.  I  can  decide  on  facts,  but  with- 
out facts  I  oscillate  helplessly.  There  was  no  solid  basis 
of  truth  here.  Did  I  love  Elizabeth?  Did  I  love  Laur- 
etta? In  God's  name,  did  I  love  anything  but  myself? 
I  tortured  myself  with  futile  and  needless  questions  which 
I  couldn't  answer  and  which  I  knew  I  couldn't  answer. 
And  even  had  I  answered  them  I  should  have  been  no 
nearer  peace  of  mind.  In  all  this  there  was  not  the 
slightest  question  of  marriage  and  possession.  I  put  that 
aside.  That  was  another  question  and  one  which  had 
solved  itself. 

For  through  all  this  confused  welter  of  thoughts  there 
drove  one  which  became  gradually  clearer.  Marriage 
with  Lauretta  now  became  a  manifest  impossibility.  Per- 
haps I  give  myself  undue  credit,  but  I  believe  that  I  should 
have  seen  this  even  had  it  been  possible  to  write  the 
previous  chapter  differently.  We  had  each  built  up  rose 
tinted  images  of  the  other  during  our  separation ;  dis- 
illusionment was  inevitable  upon  our  coming  together 
again.  It  was  unavoidable;  even  had  we  closed  our  eyes 
to  the  truth  we  must  have  seen  clearly  at  some  time. 

All  my  finely  conceived  images  of  Lauretta  fell  away 
and  vanished.  Not  that  she  wasn't  as  fine  and  sweet  as  I 


FLOOD  TIDE  319 

had  imagined  her ;  she  was  all  that,  but  in  a  different  way. 
I  had  pictured  myself  as  her  equal,  as  a  comrade;  I  had 
imagined  things  which  we  might  share  together.  There 
could  be  no  sharing,  I  recognized  clearly.  We  were  in 
harmony  on  many  things,  the  difficulties  which  had  shut 
me  off  from  Bess  were  not  apparent  here.  But  Lauretta 
had  one  thing  which  I  had  lost.  This  was  youth.  There 
were  eighteen  years  between  us,  and  eighteen  years  is  an 
obstacle  which  even  semi-sober  thought  cannot  ignore.  I 
had  seen  other  couples  try  to  ignore  a  difference  of  this 
sort,  and  the  results  had  not  been  pleasing. 

Besides,  you  know,  I  had  surprised  that  look  in  Laur- 
etta's eyes.     I  knew  that  I  was  found  out,  unmasked. 


I  sat  in  the  living  room,  a  magazine  on  my  knees,  mak- 
ing a  pretence  at  reading  and  really  staring  out  of  the 
windows  and  thinking.  The  three  windows  before  me 
framed  a  triptych  of  shimmering  sea-scape  and  white 
floating  clouds ;  above  the  sill  the  topsail  of  the  sloop 
drew  closely  along  and  vanished  from  sight.  Peter  and 
Larry  had  gone  fishing  across  the  bay,  after  asking  me 
to  accompany  them  and  taking  my  refusal  in  good  part. 
Lauretta  entered  behind  me,  paused,  and  then  came  over 
and  sat  on  the  window  seat  before  me.  She  let  slip  the 
leather  strap  over  her  shoulder  and  deposited  her  golf 
clubs  with  a  clatter,  then  extracted  a  club  and  poked  at 
my  magazine. 

"Don't  be  grumpy,"  she  said,  as  it  fell  to  the  floor  with 
a  flutter  of  leaves.  "Come  out  and  play  a  round  with 
me.  You  haven't  been  out  to  the  links  yet,  have  you?" 

"Not  yet,  Laury,"  I  answered. 

"You  haven't  been  anywhere,"  she  said  in  sudden  vex- 
ation. She  leaned  over  and  swung  the  club  in  her  tanned 
little  hands,  making  shots  at  the  pattern  of  the  rug. 
"What's  the  trouble?  Business?" 


320  FLOOD  TIDE 

I  shook  ray  head. 

"You're  not  sick,  are  you?"  she  suggested.  "You  said 
that  Cadberry  had  fever,  you  know." 

"I'm  healthy  enough,"  I  responded  gloomily. 

"Then  what?"  She  wrinkled  her  brows  and  sent  the 
magazines  sliding  across  the  floor  with  a  well  directed 
blow.  "You've  moped  around  ever  since  you  came  here, 
just  sitting  around  and  frowning.  You've  avoided  every- 
body. You  run  away  when  you  see  me  coming.  You're 
worried  over  something,  I  know." 

"I  am  worried,"  I  admitted. 

"I  know,"  she  said  slowly.     "It  concerns  me?" 

I  looked  at  her  blankly.  She  had  gone  directly  to  the 
heart  of  matters. 

"You  needn't  tell  me,"  she  went  on.  "I  know.  I'm 
thinking  of  it,  too." 

"It's  hard  work,  isn't  it?" 

"Indeed  it  is,"  she  agreed.  "We  haven't  changed — and 
still  we  have." 

"We  see  more  clearly,  that's  all.     Isn't  that  it?" 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  responded.     "I  hope  so." 

"It's  a  miserable  business,  Laury,"  I  went  on.  I  had 
dreaded  this  discussion,  but  now  that  it  was  started  I 
found  a  relief  in  discussing  it.  "I  haven't  changed  in  my 
feelings  toward  you — and  yet " 

"Nor  I  either,"  she  agreed  and  smiled  faintly.     "And 

"There  are  other  questions  mixed  with  it,"  I  suggested. 

"There  are,"  she  said,  and  we  sat  for  a  moment  gloom- 
ily considering  these  other  questions.  We  were  fencing, 
each  waiting  for  the  other  to  make  the  next  move. 

Finally  she  laughed  and  the  deadlock  was  broken. 

"There's  no  use  in  giving  up  everything  just  for  that," 
she  said  suddenly,  rising  and  standing  before  me.  "We 
have  the  rest  of  the  summer  to  mope  and  be  miserable  in. 
And  just  now  playing  golf  is  more  important.  Come." 

"Old  Doc  Annersley's  Cure,"  she  said  smiling,  as  I  rose 


FLOOD  TIDE  321 

and  accompanied  her.  "Kills  the  blues  and  induces 
cosmic  harmony.  Here,  take  Larry's  bag,  mine  too.  It's 
the  best  medicine  in  the  world ;  get  out  and  hit  something." 

"I  think—     •"  I  began. 

"Don't  think,"  she  interrupted.  "I  don't  want  you  to 
think.  You've  been  thinking  too  much.  You  know,  after 
a  while  you  get  all  muddled  up,  like  a  man  lost  in  the 
woods.  You  just  travel  around  in  a  circle  and  go  over 
and  over  the  same  ground.  And  you  don't  get  any- 
where." 

"I  really  think "  I  persisted. 

"But  I  asked  you  not  to  think,"  she  interrupted  again. 

"I  think  that  you're  right,"  I  completed. 

"I  knew  that  already,"  she  sniffed  scornfully.  "Why 
make  such  a  parade  of  the  obvious  truth?" 

She  bedeviled  me  most  unmercifully  all  afternoon,  a 
small  flushed  demon  in  a  short  skirt  and  tarn  o'  shanter, 
always  at  my  elbow,  criticizing,  commenting,  suggesting, 
wondering  that  she  had  known  me  so  long  without  discov- 
ering that  I  had  ten  thumbs  and  two  left  hands. 


August  the  First  came.  I  remembered  with  a  twinge 
of  regret  that  I  had  promised  to  return  to  work  on  that 
date.  The  old  order  was  to  have  passed  with  July ;  after 
that  my  life  would  be  on  another  plane.  It  was.  I  touch 
the  common  lot  of  humanity  on  that  point. 

The  incident  at  Sarajevo  had  occurred  while  we  were 
coming  north  from  Yucatan.  We  had  missed  that  en- 
tirely ;  when  we  reached  New  York  other  events  had  swept 
it  from  the  front  page.  The  smouldering,  the  first  wisps 
of  smoke  and  the  crackle  and  dart  of  flames  had  passed 
as  unnoticed  as  this  first  spark;  the  first  maneuvering 
and  futile  exchange  of  telegrams  had  taken  place  during 
the  week  at  Whitehaven.  I  had  missed  all  that.  Only 
after  I  reached  the  Annersleys  did  war  seem  more  than  a 


322  FLOOD  TIDE 

bare  possibility;  even  at  the  last  moment  it  was  thought 
that  the  storm  would  pass  over.  Clouds  were  forever 
gathering  and  dispersing.  This  too  would  pass.  War — 
we  had  outgrown  that.  We  thought  of  the  growth  of 
Socialism,  arbitration  treaties,  the  Hague,  and  were  com- 
forted. "The  bankers  won't  let  them  fight,"  said  Peter, 
and  I  believed  him.  War,  save  as  police  duty,  was  a  thing 
of  the  past. 

It  seems  strange  to  recall  these  pre-bellum  arguments 
and  opinions.  We  denied  the  possibility  of  a  horrible 
thing  in  the  same  spirit  which  moves  men  to  deny  the1 
existence  of  crime  and  poverty.  We  like  to  contemplate 
pleasant  things,  and  one  of  the  easiest  ways  of  securing 
the  pleasant  is  by  denying  the  existence  of  the  unpleasant. 
I  know,  because  I  have  followed  that  way  all  my  life. 
Humanity  in  general  is  no  better.  I  find  some  slight  con- 
solation in  that  thought. 

Then  August  the  First  came,  the  first  of  a  long  line  of 
red  kings,  and  the  impossibility  became  an  actuality.  Yet 
it  was  all  marvelously  distant  and  unreal ;  I  remember  the 
first  days  of  the  war  only  as  a  shadowy  background  of 
my  own  troubles.  The  world  was  all  wrong  and  I  was 
part  of  it. 

Prophets  shifted  their  ground  and  began  to  proclaim 
that  at  the  worst  the  war  could  last  but  three  months — 
six  months — a  year;  only  the  most  visionary  went  beyond 
that  limit.  Annersley  became  a  short-war  man,  after 
recovering  from  the  surprising  fact  that  the  nations  had 
flown  in  the  face  of  his  prophecies  of  no  war  at  all. 
"Three  months,  then  exhaustion.  The  masses  will  rise," 
he  said  wisely.  And  he  has  stuck  to  that  opinion  ever 
since;  the  end  of  the  war  is  always  three  months  ahead. 

There  was  much  talk  of  the  Kronprinzessvn  Cecilie. 
There  was  more  talk  of  naval  activities  off  the  coast. 
All  lights  were  mysterious  lights.  There  were  rumors  of 
a  sea  fight  off  the  islands ;  Larry  heard  the  firing  and  tore 
off  in  the  Warp.  He  returned  with  the  news  that  some 


FLOOD  TIDE  828 

one  had  been  blasting  for  a  foundation  on  one  of  the  outer 
islands.  He  was  very  down  in  the  mouth.  Two  of  his 
intimate  pals  were  abroad  and  he  had  missed  accom- 
panying them  only  by  the  narrowest  of  margins.  He 
seemed  fated  to  miss  everything. 

Larry  went  over  after  the  mail  each  afternoon,  making 
the  trip  in  the  Warp  and  coming  back  laden  with  all  the 
available  papers.  He  devoured  every  line  of  war  news 
and  then  spent  the  rest  of  the  day  in  bewailing  the  hard 
fate  which  had  condemned  him  to  a  life  of  inaction. 

He  was  especially  bitter  upon  his  return  with  the  mail 
that  evening;  the  papers  were  full  of  wildly  inaccurate 
accounts  and  as  a  crowning  sorrow  he  had  received  a 
letter  from  one  of  his  pals,  then  in  Paris.  It  was  over 
a  week  old,  full  of  hasty  surmises  and  details  of  the  pre- 
liminary movements.  He  lifted  up  his  voice  and  wept. 

"  'Will  have  a  lot  to  tell  you  in  September,'  "  he  read, 
and  looked  around  in  disgust.  "And  a  fine  lot  I'll  have 
to  tell  them." 

"Count  yourself  lucky,"  grunted  Peter  without  looking 
up  from  his  paper.  "They're  not  seeing  so  much  of  it 
as  you  think.  And  most  likely  you'd  get  your  fool  head 
shot  off." 

Larry  muttered  some  unfilial  sentiment.  "They're 
going  to  get  a  bunch  together  and  form  a  Foreign 
Legion,"  he  announced  as  he  read  on.  "I'd  like  to  see 
Chuck  and  old  Fox  Trott  going  around  in  baggy  red 
pants." 

He  subsided  to  silence  and  we  read  on  in  the  waning 
light.  Namur,  Liege,  Brussels — the  names  stand  out  yet. 
I  soon  tired  of  it  and  watched  the  silent  gray  army  of  the 
invading  mist  conquer  the  salt  swale  below,  carry  the  out- 
works of  the  orchard  and  then  creep  and  flow  along 
the  ragged  aisles  toward  us.  I  watched  that  for  a  while 
and  then  watched  Lauretta.  She,  too,  had  discarded 
her  papers  and  frowned  out  over  the  silent  mist.  Think- 
ing, perhaps.  I  thought  too. 


324  FLOOD  TIDE 

Peter  discarded  his  sheets  with  an  annunciatory  rustle. 
He  cleared  his  throat.  "Three  months  I'll  give  them,"  he 
reiterated,  and  we  foresaw  another  exposition  of  his  rea- 
sons for  such  a  period. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Larry  from  the  steps  below  and 
fumbled  in  his  pocket.  "I'd  forgotten.  There's  a  tele- 
gram for  you1." 

He  tossed  it  over  to  me  and  went  on  with  his  reading. 

From  Marks,  I  thought  as  I  ripped  open  the  envelope. 
Probably  some  reminder  that  the  date  set  for  my  return 
had  passed.  He  could  wait. 

But  I  had  guessed  wrong.  It  was  from  Stowell,  terse 
and  abrupt  and  cryptic.  "Come  back.  Situation  bad 
growing  worse.  We  need  you."  Just  that  much  and 
never  an  explanation  of  what  situation  was  meant  nor 
exactly  who  needed  me.  Stowell  always  made  the  irritat- 
ing assumption  that  I  knew  more  than  I  did.  What  situ- 
ation? Something  connected  with  his  affairs,  probably. 
The  only  fact  that  the  telegram  conveyed  was  that  Sto- 
well was  in  some  sort  of  trouble  and  needed  me. 

I  handed  the  telegram  to  Peter;  he  stopped  midway  in 
a  fine  passage  concerning  modern  fortifications,  and  read. 

"But  what  is  it?"  he  said  blankly,  and  turned  the  tele- 
gram over  in  search  of  concealed  information. 

"I've  no  idea,"  I  said,  "beyond  that  I  must  go  as  soon 
as  possible." 

"Not  to-night,"  he  objected.  "There  are  no  trains. 
You  might  get  one  from  Bath,  but — how  about  it, 
Laury?" 

"A  hurry  call,  is  it?"  she  asked.  "Very  much  of  a 
hurry?" 

She  appealed  to  me.  I  knew  what  thought  was  upper- 
most in  her  mind;  to  leave  now  would  leave  an  unsettled 
question  behind  me.  But  there  was  no  help  for  it. 

"No,"  she  decided  abruptly.     "There  are  no  trains." 

"The  Shadow,"  suggested  Larry. 

But  the  Shadow  was  out  of  commission  at  Bath. 


FLOOD  TIDE  325 

"I  know,"  said  Laury  suddenly.  "The  Boston  boat. 
We  can  catch  her  at  Popham — she's  always  late,  you 
know." 

Her  eyes  met  mine  for  a  moment.  "I'll  go  over  with 
you,"  she  answered  my  unspoken  question. 


We  swung  out  into  the  dusk,  circled  away  and  headed 
south.  "...  luck,"  Annersley  called  from  the  string 
piece  of  the  dock,  his  voice  penetrating  the  roar  of  the 
motor.  ".  .  .  back  .  .  .  straightened  out." 

I  waved  my  hand  in  answer  and  he  faded  to  a  dim  blur 
of  white  as  the  Warp  drove  on.  Larry  shouted  back  over 
his  shoulder  and  Lauretta  made  some  adjustment  in  the 
motors ;  the  roar  flattened  to  a  steady  penetrating  drone ; 
we  gathered  speed  and  two  wings  of  spray  spattered  and 
wavered  out  over  the  wrinkled  sea.  Behind  us  the  shore 
dwindled  to  a  dim  line;  beyond  the  fringe  of  outer  islands 
a  great  star  winked  and  flared  and  kept  pace  with  us  as 
we  swished  along.  Lauretta  made  a  final  adjustment  and 
switched  on  a  tiny  glow  lamp,  then  came  swaying  aft  and 
sat  beside  me,  wiping  her  hands  on  a  bit  of  waste. 

"Is  it  anything  serious,  do  you  suppose?"  she  asked. 

"The  telegram?  I  don't  know.  Stowell  is  in  some  sort 
of  trouble.  I  may  be  able  to  help  him.  And  perhaps  not. 
I've  been  away  so  long,  you  know.  It  may  be  anything." 

Silence  fell  between  us ;  the  drone  of  the  motor  and  the 
hiss  and  curl  of  the  following  wake  shut  out  all  else. 

"But  you'll  come  back  again,"  she  asserted  presently. 

"I'll  try  to,"  I  promised.  I  had  no  idea  what  lay  before 
me.  I  didn't  care.  I  might  return,  or  I  might  find  it  im- 
possible to  get  away  for  the  rest  of  the  summer.  My 
month  was  up.  The  war — new  complications — the 
chances  were  that  I  shouldn't  return.  But  to  go  away 
and  leave  our  question  unsettled,  a  sword  hanging  over 
our  heads No.  That,  at  least,  could  be  settled. 


326  FLOOD  TIDE 

"Have  you  decided?"  I  asked.  I  knew  that  the  subject 
was  uppermost  in  her  mind,  as  it  was  in  mine. 

She  shook  her  head  slowly.  "Not  yet,"  she  answered 
in  a  low  voice,  drawing  the  bunch  of  waste  slowly  through 
her  fingers.  "Sometimes  I  think  one  way;  sometimes  an- 
other. It's  awfully  hard  to  decide  such  things,  isn't  it?" 

I  knew  how  hard  it  was.  "But  there's  only  one  con- 
clusion, Laury.  We  might  as  well  make  it  now.  ...  I 
may  come  back — I'll  try  to — but  I  may  not.  It's  no 
good  leaving  things  unsettled.  We  know  as  much  now 
as  we  ever  will.  .  .  .  We  can't  go  on." 

I  caught  her  answer,  barely  audible  above  the  thrum  of 
machinery.  "I  think  that  too,"  she  said. 

"We  can't  go  on,"  I  repeated,  and  stopped  miserably. 
"I'm  looking  ahead,  seeing  the  future  in  a  new  light.  .  .  . 
I'm  nearly  forty,  you  know.  If  we  could  stay  as  we  were 
last  year — but  that's  impossible.  We've  changed.  I'm 
ten  years  older  now.  We've  been  good  friends,  we  always 
will  be,  I  hope.  Marriage  isn't  just  being  good  friends; 
it's  more  than  that.  I  know  that  I  would  be  happy.  It 
would  mean  the  solution  of  many  things  that  trouble  me. 
But  you  wouldn't — be  happy,  I  mean.  You  might  for  a 
while — but  I'm  getting  old.  I  feel  it.  I'm  looking  back, 
not  looking  ahead.  If  I  considered  myself  alone  this  is 
the  last  thing  I'd  say.  But  I'm  trying  to  look  at  it  from 
your  side.  I  know  myself  better  than  you  do.  I'm  not 
much  good." 

She  made  a  gestvire  of  negation.  I  stopped.  Had  I 
gone  on  I  must  have  told  her  of  Elizabeth.  That  was 
something  apart.  I  wanted  her  to  remember  only  the 
better  side  of  me. 

"You  see,  don't  you?"  I  appealed. 

"Just  as  you  do.    You  make  it  very  easy  for  me." 

"Don't,"  I  said  clumsily.  "I  think  I'm  trying  to  make 
it  easy  for  myself." 

"I  dragged  you  into  it,"  she  said  penitently. 

"No — and  if  you  did  I'm  glad.     I  shall  always  remem- 


FLOOD  TIDE  327 

ber  it  as  something  wonderfully  good  and  clean.  Not  an 
unpleasant  thing  connected  with  it." 

"No,  there  isn't."  She  turned  with  a  despairing  little 
gesture,  a  faint  smile  about  her  eyes.  "Why  aren't  you 
ten  years  younger?" 

"Why  aren't  you  ten  years  older?" 

She  found  courage  to  laugh.  "I  don't  want  to  be. 
But  if  you  only  were — 

"It's  too  late  to  change  that  now.  That's  the  trouble, 
isn't  it?  I've  been  masquerading  as  something  I'm  not. 
And  now  I'm  found  out." 

She  nodded  soberly.  The  stars  peered  out  as  we  ripped 
along  through  the  gathering  dusk ;  the  wind  came  in  gusts 
against  our  faces,  mingled  with  the  spray  of  our  passage ; 
a  strand  of  her  dusky  hair  whipped  loose  and  caressed 
my  cheek  with  soft  fingers.  She  looked  up,  and  I  caught 
the  flash  of  her  smile  in  the  glow  of  the  lamp. 

"There'll  be  no  letters  to  burn;  that's  one  thing  we 
avoid,"  she  said.  "And  we've  been  engaged  nearly  a 
year!  By  rights,  you  know,  I  ought  to  have  a  bundle  of 
letters  tied  in  a  faded  pink  ribbon,  to  read  and  be  mis- 
erable over  on  rainy  days.  You've  cheated  me." 

She  spoke  lightly,  and  yet  there  was  a  catch  in  her 
voice. 

"There  will  be  no  awkward  reminders,"  I  agreed. 

"No  one  ever  knew  about  it  but  you  and  me."  She 
seemed  to  take  some  consolation  in  that  thought. 

"Mrs.  Fairleigh  suspected,"  I  said. 

"She's  always  thinking  something  of  that  sort,"  re- 
sponded Lauretta  absently.  "When  did  you  see  her?" 

"Last  week.  She's  at  Whitehaven  this  year.  I  stopped 
there  on  the  way  up." 

"I  didn't  know,"  she  said,  and  I  caught  her  frown  as 
she  wrinkled  her  brows  over  some  inner  problem. 

There  was  so  much  that  she  didn't  know.  I  had  hurt 
her ;  she  was  still  in  doubt.  She  still  thought  that  I  was  a 
decent  man,  hurting  myself  for  her  good.  I  was  trying  to 


328  FLOOD  TIDE 

save  myself  something  unpleasant  and  I  knew  it.  Why 
couldn't  I  tell  her  why  I  had  stopped  at  Whitehaven? 
Why  didn't  I?  I  was  trying  to  persuade  myself  that  I 
did  a  high  and  noble  thing  because  it  was  right — not  be- 
cause it  was  easiest.  "Masquerading,"  I  had  said.  Still 
masquerading.  Trying  to  keep  her  respect  when  I 
couldn't  respect  myself.  Tell  her. 

I  would. 

"You  know "  I  started,  and  got  no  further. 

"I  haven't  treated  you  right,"  she  said  suddenly. 
"You've  been  so — so  white;  and  I've  lied  to  you.  I'm  a 
mean  little  sneak." 

She  gulped  and  then  went  on  desperately. 

"You  would  be  surprised — hurt  if  I  became  engaged 
to  Ross  DeWitt — the  architect,  you  know?" 

"Why  no,  Laury,"  I  answered,  "but " 

"I  saw  a  great  deal  of  him  during  the  winter,"  she  went 
on  hurriedly.  "I'd  have  written  to  you  about  him — but  I 
couldn't.  He  asked  me  in  June.  He  didn't  know,  you 
see?  And  I  couldn't  tell  him." 

"You  poor  kid !    And  you  turned  him  down  ?" 

"Yes."  Her  hand  clenched  in  a  sudden  gesture.  "No, 
I  didn't.  I  told  him  to  wait." 

I  had  never  seen  Lauretta  cry — never  had  suspected 
that  she  could.  But  now  her  half  averted  face  was  drawn 
in  lines  of  misery ;  she  caught  her  breath  in  a  sudden  sob 
and  wiped  her  eyes  with  the  grimy  fragment  of  cotton 
waste. 

"I'm  a  darned  fool  and  a  d-darned  liar  and  I  don't 
know  what  you'll  think  of  me,"  she  sobbed. 

And  I  laughed.  I  laughed  uncontrollably,  hysterically, 
without  in  the  least  intending  anything  of  the  sort.  I 
laughed  until  the  tears  came,  strangled  and  choked  and 
struggled  in  vain  to  control  myself.  I  tried  to  stop  and 
couldn't.  Larry  looked  back  and  shouted  an  inquiry;  I 
could  only  wave  helplessly  at  him  and  go  on  laughing. 
Lauretta  looked  at  me  in  amazement  at  first,  then  she 


FLOOD  TIDE  329 

drew  away  and  stiffened  in  anger  as  I  choked  down  the 
final  spasms  and  drew  breath  again. 

"I  don't  see —    -"  she  began  sullenly. 

"Believe  me,  I'm  not  laughing  at  you,"  I  said  as  ser- 
iously as  I  could.  "At  myself,  perhaps.  I  don't  know 
just  what  I  did  laugh  at.  I  didn't  mean  to." 

"Did  I  say  anything  funny?"  she  demanded,  very  digni- 
fied. 

"No.  I  congratulate  you  on  DeWitt.  He's  all  right. 
But  this  whole  affair  between  us  is  so  utterly  absurd.  I 
told  you  that  I  stopped  at  Whitehaven.  Do  you  know 
why?"  I  grew  sober  at  the  recollection.  "I  asked  some 
one  else  to  marry  me,  Laury.  I  was  just  about  to  tell 
you  when  you  told  me  about  DeWitt." 

She  looked  at  me  with  wide  eyes  in  the  dusk,  her  lips 
parted  in  an  unspoken  accusation. 

"Did  I  know  about  DeWitt?"  I  defended.  "We're  a 
bad  lot,  you  and  I." 

Her  expression  softened  and  she  broke  into  a  smile. 

"Aren't  we,  though?"  she  exclaimed,  and  then — and  I 
swear  there  was  a  note  of  jealousy  in  her  voice:  "Who 
was  it?  Lotta  Fairleigh?" 

"Good  Lord,  no !  No  one  that  you  know,  Laury.  We 
were  engaged  once — when  I  first  came  to  New  York — 
we  broke  it  off.  And  seeing  her  again.  .  .  .  You  must 
have  been  a  little  girl  in  short  skirts  then." 

"And  so  I  am  to  congratulate  you,  too?" 

"No." 

She  caught  her  breath  and  was  silent  for  a  space. 
"That's  what  has  been  worrying  you,  then.  I'm  sorry. 

"Was  that  why  you  fell  in  love  with  me — because  I 
resembled  her?"  she  said  presently,  coming  to  the  end  of 
some  line  of  thought.  "Since  she  came  first,  when  I 
was  a  so-little  girl." 

"There's  no  comparison,  Laury;  I've  avoided  making 
one,"  I  answered.  She  showed  signs  of  going  on  with 


330  FLOOD  TIDE 

further  questions.  "Please  don't.  I'm  nearly  mad  with 
thinking  of  it." 

"I  wonder,"  she  said  after  a  time.  "I  wonder  if — did 
she  and  Ross — 

She  fumbled  over  it,  but  I  caught  her  meaning. 

"No,"  I  answered.  "I  think  that  they  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  question  between  us.  There  is  a  con- 
nection— there  couldn't  help  but  be.  Still,  they're  out- 
side of  this.  They  just  showed  us  before  it  was  too 
late." 

"I  suppose  that's  it,"  she  assented  soberly.  "I  hope 
it  is." 

The  land  to  the  right  fell  away  abruptly  and  we 
swung  into  the  shadowy  lower  reach  of  the  river.  Ahead 
of  us  and  to  starboard  were  the  low  banked  lights  of 
the  steamer;  her  wake  gleamed  white  and  ghostlike  be- 
hind her,  a  white  reflection  of  the  black  smoke  above. 
Larry  switched  on  the  searchlight  on  the  cowl  before 
and  wigwagged  frantically;  an  answering  blast  came 
booming  back  to  us. 

"Just  make  it,"  his  voice  was  whipped  back  to  us. 

We  drove  on.  The  lights  came  nearer;  we  swung 
over  and  followed  her  wake,  hissing  and  spinning  over- 
side. She  whistled  for  the  landing;  the  muffled  clangor 
of  bells  came  to  us ;  a  white  welter  of  foam  grew  out  from 
beneath  her  churning  paddles  in  widespread  wings.  We 
drove  through  the  waves  raised  by  her  passage,  pitched 
wildly  for  a  moment  as  the  bow  thumped  and  sent  out 
hissing  showers  of  spray,  and  then  circled  ahead.  The 
lights  of  the  steamer  blended  with  those  of  the  wharf; 
we  heard  the  thump  of  ropes,  the  rattle  of  the  gang- 
plank; a  warning  shout  sounded  from  the  high  darkness 
of  her  pilot  house.  The  insistent  clamor  of  our  motor 
decreased  in  volume;  the  bow  settled  slowly  and  we  stole 
within  the  circle  of  radiance.  Faces  peered  down  on  us 
from  the  tiered  decks  as  we  slid  alongside ;  Larry  clutched 


FLOOD  TIDE  331 

at  the  projecting  deck  and  we  stopped.  I  swung  my  bag 
over  the  rail  and  leaped  up  after  it. 

Below  me  the  launch  lay  in  the  dark  shadow  of  the 
overhang;  their  two  faces,  dimly  illuminated,  stood  out 
disembodied.  The  gangplank  rattled  inboard,  a  prelim- 
inary swirl  of  the  paddles  and  Larry  shoved  out. 

"Let  us  know  when  to  expect  you,"  he  called  as  the 
paddles  churned  mightily  and  set  the  Warp  rocking. 
Lauretta  reached  for  the  throttle  and  the  Warp  sent  an 
answering  swirl  of  froth  against  the  spume  from  the 
paddles.  We  moved  slowly  apart.  Lauretta  stood  in  the 
stern,  looking  up  and  back  at  me  as  the  long  shape  neared 
the  outer  edge  of  light  She  stood  immobile  for  a  moment, 
a  shadowy  white  figure  against  the  darkness,  her  face  a 
dim  blur.  Then  her  arm  shot  up  in  a  gesture  of  farewell. 
I  gestured  blindly  in  reply ;  a  staccato  roar  of  explosions 
and  the  stern  light  of  the  Warp  swung  off  in  a  wide  circle, 
faded,  twinkled,  reappeared,  and  vanished. 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 


I  EEACHED  New  York  at  noon.  There  creeps  into  my 
mind  the  memory  of  a  discussion  which  went  on  behind  me 
all  the  way  down  from  Boston ;  a  discussion  which  started 
amicably  enough  on  the  subject  of  straw  braid  and 
leather  findings  between  Boston  and  Providence,  shifted 
ground  to  the  Masurian  Lakes  and  Belgium  between 
Providence  and  New  London  and  finally  died  away  into 
frigid  silence  broken  by  snorts  of  contempt  after  we  had 
passed  New  Haven.  I  remember  a  wilderness  of  dis- 
carded newspapers  along  the  aisle  of  the  subway  train, 
the  crowds  before  the  bulletin  boards  in  Park  Row,  the 
inevitable  orator  at  the  foot  of  the  statue  as  I  crossed 
to  StowelPs  office. 

I  found  quiet  instead  of  the  confusion  which  I  had 
dimly  expected.  Stowell  was  out,  I  was  languidly  in- 
formed by  the  girl  in  the  outer  office.  "Any  message?" 
I  gave  her  my  name  and  she  looked  at  me  with  sudden 
interest. 

"He  is  at  your  office,"  she  said,  and  reached  for  the 
telephone.  "Shall  I  call  him?" 

"Don't  bother;  I'm  going  right  over." 

I  went  down  again  through  the  streets,  crowded  now 
with  the  noon  hour  throng,  looking  at  the  passing  faces 
in  sudden  distaste.  Once,  long  ago,  I  had  been  glad  to 
get  back  to  this ;  now  I  found  it  all  ugly,  singularly  futile 
and  meaningless. 

The  ecclesiastical  walls  and  vaults  of  the  outer  office 

still  echoed  faintly  with  the  buzz  and  hum  of  voices  and 

ruffled  papers  and  muffled  typewriters ;  I  noticed,  however, 

that  the  buzz  died  away  as  I  approached  and  sprang  up 

332 


FLOOD  TIDE  333 

again  as  I  passed.  Heads  were  turned,  and  faces  stared 
at  me.  I  was  conscious  of  a  feeling  of  annoyance;  I  was 
a  stranger,  I  knew,  but  there  seemed  no  need  of  making 
my  appearance  an  occasion  of  wonder.  I  nodded  to 
Noyes,  the  Group  C  manager,  as  I  passed  his  desk;  he 
rose  and  caught  up  with  me,  gesticulating  with  crumpled 
papers.  I  caught  the  tag  end  of  a  question. 

"See  Marks,"  I  said  impatiently,  and  waved  him  off. 
He  gaped  in  a  queer  fashion  and  fell  behind. 

Stowell  looked  up  as  I  entered  and  shut  out  the  sub- 
dued murmur  behind  me.  He  was  seated  at  Marks'  desk, 
papers  piled  methodically  about  him. 

"Well,"  he  said,  and  rose  to  greet  me.  He  had  the 
hushed  and  tiptoeing  air  of  a  mourner  at  a  funeral. 
"Where  were  you?" 

"Down  in  Maine.  I  came  as  quickly  as  I  could.  .  .  . 
But  you  must  have  known ;  I  got  your  telegram." 

"I  sent  seven,"  he  answered,  "and  took  a  chance  on  one 
of  them  finding  you."  He  paused,  and  looked  at  me  in 
silence. 

"Well,  what's  the  trouble?"  I  asked. 

He  remained  silent,  fingering  the  piles  of  paper  be- 
fore him  in  evident  embarrassment.  His  attitude  nettled 
me ;  I  had  come  prepared  to  battle  with  unguessed  terrors 
on  his  behalf.  Now  he  seemed  afraid  to  tell  me. 

"Come  out  of  it,"  I  said  abruptly.  "You  called  me  on 
account  of  some  trouble,  I  know.  Who's  the  victim?" 

"You  are,"  he  admitted. 

"Then  why  didn't  you  say  so?  I've  been  imagining  all 
sorts  of  things  about  you,  from  divorce  to  embezzlement. 
What's  the  trouble?  Fire?  Strike?  More  Pingree?" 

"You've  lost  The  Stores,"  he  said  abruptly.  "Of 
course  I  can't  say  for  sure,"  he  went  on  hurriedly,  "that's 
just  a  rough  guess  and  it  may  not  be  so  bad  as  that. 
There  are  many  things  that  I  don't  dare  to  touch,"  and 
he  gestured  toward  the  piled  papers,  "and  a  great  many 
things  missing.  I'm  telling  you  the  worst,  you  see." 


334  FLOOD  TIDE 

"I  can  stand  it,"  I  said  after  a  momentary  pause.  "I'm 
getting  used  to  losing  things.  But  where  do  you  come 
in  on  this?" 

"I've  been  here  since — what's  to-day?  Thursday? — 
since  Tuesday  morning.  Marks  called  me  Monday  night 
— late.  I  didn't  recognize  his  voice  at  first ;  what  he  said 
was  nothing  more  than  a  jumble,  anyway.  All  I  got 
out  of  it  was  that  he  wanted  to  see  me  in  the  morning — 
that  and  the  information  that  everything  had  gone  to 
hell.  I  agreed;  I  thought  he  was  talking  about  the  war. 
But  I  came  down  Tuesday;  waited  around;  no  Marks. 
Coupled  with  what  he'd  said  the  night  before  I  began  to 
suspect  that  something  was  wrong.  I  did  a  little  snoop- 
ing around — there  were  papers  all  over  the  office  for  any 
fool  to  see,  you  know — and  I  got  just  a  flash  of  the 
whole  trouble.  Then — that  tall  man  in  the  second  group 
section — 

"Fisher?"   I  volunteered. 

"Fisher  came  in  here  looking  for  orders  and  I  acted 
on  a  hunch  and  told  him  what  to  do.  I  said  that  I'd 
been  sent  for  by  Marks — which  was  nothing  more  than 
the  truth — and  told  him  not  to  bother  me.  It  took  me 
all  Tuesday  to  get  on  your  trail,  and  the  rest  of  the  time 
I've  been  trying  to  piece  things  together.  ...  I  stayed 
all  last  night." 

"You  look  it.  ...  But  what  has  Marks  done?"  I 
asked.  "Why  the  devil  isn't  he  here?" 

"He  won't  be  in,"  Stowell  answered  slowly,  and  nodded 
in  answer  to  my  unspoken  question.  "They  found  him 
this  morning — up  state  in  that  big  car  of  his.  .  .  .  Either 
driving  blindly  to  get  away  from  himself  or  going  with 
some  idea  of  getting  into  Canada.  I  don't  know.  There's 
nothing  illegal,  as  far  as  I  can  find  out.  Trying  to  get 
away  from  himself,  I  imagine.  .  .  .  The  car  was  a  mess, 
all  smashed.  .  .  .  And  the  wheel  caught  him  under  the 
chin."  He  made  a  gesture  of  repugnance,  and  stopped. 

"A  rotten  mess,  isn't  it?"  he  said  finally. 


FLOOD  TIDE  335 

"It  must  be,"  I  agreed.  "I  can't  imagine "  But 

there  were  so  many  things  that  I  couldn't  imagine. 

In  the  silence  that  followed,  some  one  tried  the  door. 
Stowell  barked  an  impatient  order  and  the  interruption 
ceased.  He  went  on. 

"Greenwood  and  Lyons  were  in  here  yesterday. 
They're  in  on  it — they  never  forgave  Marks,  you  know. 
I  persuaded  them  to  postpone  action  until  we  found 
either  you  or  Marks.  .  .  .  You're  both  found  and  we 
might  as  well  go  ahead."  He  reached  for  the  telephone 
and  then  paused.  "I'm  not  sure,  but  as  nearly  as  I  can 
determine,  Marks  has  hocked  the  whole  business  with 
them  and  thrown  it  all  into  stocks.  Why?  Why  does 
any  one  try  that  game?  .  .  .  And  when  the  Exchange 
closed.  .  .  .  He  had  some  object,  I  suppose.  That  game 
always  attracted  him ;  you  remember  how  he  used  to  pore 
over  the  financial  news  even  in  the  days  of  the  old  officer 
He  must  have  started  last  fall,  when  you  left,  and  kept 
getting  in  deeper  and  deeper.  I've  found  some  notes 
which  give  me  a  hint  of  that." 

He  dropped  his  mournful  manner  and  assumed  one  of 
forced  and  wearied  cheerfulness.  "We'll  plug  through 
somehow,"  he  said.  "It's  probably  not  so  bad  as  I've 
painted  it." 

"I  don't  care  how  bad  it  is,"  I  answered. 

He  looked  at  me  in  doubt. 

"I  don't  care,"  I  repeated,  and  spoke  the  truth.  This 
question  of  coming  back  to  work  had  troubled  me  during 
the  past  week ;  now  it  seemed  settled.  To  come  back  and 
face  years  of  purposeless  building  had  been  unthinkable. 
.  .  .  Stowell's  blank  face  looked  at  me  reproachfully 
over  the  mouthpiece  of  the  phone ;  I  remembered  that  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  happenings  of  the  past  two  weeks. 

"No;  I'm  not  out  of  my  head,"  I  said.  "That's  all 
right.  What's  the  first  move?" 

"Call  in  Greenwood  and  Lyons,"  he  said  after  a  mo- 


336  FLOOD  TIDE 

ment.  "I've  no  status  here,  you  know,  save  what  is 
founded  on  pure  bluff.  But — you  don't  care?" 

"There  are  worse  things  than  this,  Dick.  Call  them 
in  and  we'll  get  started.  You'll  stay  and  see  it  through 
with  me?" 

"Surely." 

He  fixed  his  eyes  on  me  and  slowly  wagged  his  head 
from  side  to  side.  With  that  expression  of  wonder  still 
on  his  face,  he  lifted  the  receiver. 

"Well— let's  dig  into  it,"  he  said  shortly. 


It  was  past  midnight  when  we  let  ourselves  out  into 
the  deserted  streets.  We  went  along  wearily;  all  that 
afternoon  and  far  into  the  night  we  had  wrangled  with 
Greenwood.  Dick  showed  the  effect  of  the  strain ;  I  know 
that  I  felt  it.  We  had  both  been  without  sleep  for  two 
days.  A  faint  suggestion  of  coolness  came  on  the  breeze 
from  the  river ;  from  far  down  Broadway  came  the  echo- 
ing clatter  of  a  street  sweeper,  a  motor  driven  ant,  gar- 
nering by  night.  We  turned  off  into  a  side  street.  Sto- 
well  stopped. 

"Let's  eat,"  he  said,  and  we  descended  the  steps  of 
an  all  night  restaurant,  one  of  these  places  that  lurk 
below  the  street  level  and  send  out  rays  of  light  across 
the  sidewalk  to  ensnare  the  stray  and  infrequent  pass- 
erby. Stowell  ordered  from  a  menu  in  purple  ink;  I 
awakened  to  a  dim  recognition  of  the  place.  I  had  never 
entered  it  before,  but  the  type  had  once  been  familiar — 
a  pressed  metal  ceiling  of  glaring  whiteness,  electric  fan 
playing  on  the  pastry,  mirrors  shrouded  in  whorls  and 
scallops  of  whiting,  and  chairs  constructed  with  total  dis- 
regard of  the  human  frame.  Stowell  and  I  had'  often 
eaten  postponed  suppers  in  such  places  years  ago,  coming 
home  from  midnight  sessions  of  planning.  Nothing 
seemed  changed,  not  even  the  waiter's  apron. 


FLOOD  TIDE  337 

Despite  his  boasted  hunger  Stowell  ate  but  little, 
watching  me  as  he  stirred  a  huge  cup  of  coffee  and  drew 
thoughtfully  at  a  cigar. 

"Miserable  business,"  he  commented  finally. 

I  came  slowly  out  of  my  foggy  recognition  of  the  place. 
"Keeping  a  joint  like  this,  you  mean?"  I  hazarded. 

He  waved  my  answer  aside  impatiently.  "This  whole 
matter  at  the  office." 

"Yes ;  miserable  indeed,"  I  agreed.  "And  it  will  get 
worse  as  we  get  further  into  it.  To-day  we  just  scraped 
the  surface." 

He  made  dingy  circles  on  the  marble  top  of  the  table 
with  the  bottom  of  his  cup.  "We'll  find  out  what  is  below 
as  we  go  on,"  he  said  absently.  "But  there  are  two 
questions ' 

He  made  a  chain  of  circles  before  he  went  on.  "Two 
questions,"  he  resumed.  "First,  why  Marks  let  all  this 
come  about.  It  looks  like  deliberate  wreckage,  although 
that's  out  of  the  question.  Greenwood  knows  the  answer 
to  that  and  says  that  he  doesn't.  .  .  .  We'll  have  to  piece 
that  out  as  we  go  along." 

"And  the  second  question?" 

"You  say  that  this  doesn't  matter,"  he  stated  abruptly. 

"It  doesn't,"  I  answered ;  "I'm  not  sorry.  About  Marks 
— that's  another  matter ;  I'm  sorry  for  that.  But  for  my 
part  of  it — I  don't  care." 

"Why  not?" 

"I  don't,  that's  all." 

"I  see  only  one  reason,"  he  concluded.  "You  knew 
what  Marks  was  doing  and  stood  ready  to  accept  the 
result.  Am  I  right?" 

"No.  I  have  been  in  the  office  twice  in  the  past  year; 
whatever  Marks  has  done  has  been  done  without  my 
knowledge." 

"I  thought  so,"  he  said.  "Then  what  else  has  hap- 
pened?" 

I  looked  at  him,  startled.     "You  know?" 


338  FLOOD  TIDE 

"I  guessed,"  he  said,  shaking  his  head.  "Go  on ;  start 
somewhere." 

"It  began  at  Whitehaven,"  I  said  after  a  moment. 

"When  were  you  there?"  he  interrupted. 

"Two  weeks  ago." 

He  nodded  to  himself.  "I  had  a  mental  bet  on  that," 
he  explained.1  "One  of  my  telegrams  went  there." 

"I'll  go  back  beyond  that,"  I  decided.  "You  remember 
the  Annersleys?  You  met  them  last  summer,  I  think." 

"I  remember,"  he  said.  "There  was  a  daughter,  wasn't 
there?" 

I  started  there  and  told  him  the  entire  affair,  from  the 
building  of  the  Shack  down  to  the  catching  of  the  Boston 
boat  the  night  before.  It  was  a  relief  to  tell  some  one 
these  things ;  more  of  a  relief  than  I  had  ever  imagined 
confession  could  be.  Over  some  parts  of  it  I  gagged  and 
hesitated;  I  still  had  some  small  fragments  of  pride 
remaining  and  it  was  hard  to  show  myself  as  doing  the 
wrong  thing.  I  got  through  it,  somehow,  and  felt  the 
better  for  it.  During  the  whole  of  my  recital  Dick 
smoked  thoughtfully,  without  interrupting  me,  mobilizing 
and  demobilizing  the  salt  cellars  and  mustard  pots  on 
the  table  before  him.  Infrequent  customers  came  and 
went;  the  waiter  shuffled  and  scuffed  about,  eying  us 
curiously. 

"You  see,  don't  you?"  I  concluded.  "I  could  have  come 
back  to  work  here — but  why  should  I?  It  would  be 
work  without  an  object,  it  would  take  up  my  time,  keep 
me  going — and  that's  all.  Perhaps  I  might  have  de- 
veloped a  new  interest  in  The  Stores,  something  after 
Marks'  interest,  building  for  the  sake  of  building,  play- 
ing the  game  for  the  game's  sake.  I  don't  know.  That 
always  seemed  a  useless  thing  to  me.  That's  what  I  tried 
to  get  away  from.  .  .  .  But  I  should  have  come  to  that, 
even  knowing  that  I  had  no  desire  to  do  it.  That  way  is 
closed  to  me  now  and  I'm  glad  of  it ;  I'd  have  drifted 
into  it  surely — just  because  it  was  easiest." 


FLOOD  TIDE  339 

Stowell  crushed  out  the  fire  of  his  cigar  on  the  tray 
and  padded  out  the  glowing  sparks. 

"You  take  these  matters  too  seriously — women — love — 
and  all  that,"  he  said  slowly.  "You've  gone  without 
them  so  long.  And  now  you  discover  them  and  they  fill 
your  whole  horizon." 

He  paused,  embarrassed. 

"I  suppose  I  do  exaggerate  their  importance,  Dick. 
And  yet — it  isn't  these  things  alone.  They're  on  the 
surface;  and  yet  not  entirely  on  the  surface.  They  have 
passed,  and — you've  seen  a  ship  pass  through  a  shallow 
channel  and  leave  it  boiling  with  muck  and  oily  scum 
behind?  It's  so  with  me.  .  .  .  No;  I'm  a  spoiled  child, 
but  I'm  not  throwing  away  my  rattle  because  I  can't  have 
the  moon.  Get  that  idea  out  of  your  head.  I've  been 
thinking  about  myself  lately,  seeing  myself  in  a  new 
light.  My  channel  of  life  has  been  stirred  to  the  bottom. 
It's  not  pretty.  I've  been  going  wrong  all  my  life,  and 
this  gives  me  a  chance  to  get  out  of  it  before  I  go  wrong 
further.  I  can  start  over  again — after  some  fashion." 

"You've  lost  your  grip,"  he  accused. 

I  considered  that.  "No ;  I  think  not.  I  never  had  any 
grip  to  lose.  I'm  not  discouraged,  disheartened,  not 
disappointed,  not  dis  anything  but  disgusted  with  myself. 
And  that  only  faintly;  disgust  implies  hope  and  I'm  too 
far  gone  for  that.  I'm  not  afraid ;  anything  but  that  .  .  . 
I've  drifted  long  enough ;  I'm  on  a  lee  shore  and  I'm  not 
trying  to  claw  off.  I'm  going  ashore  alone;  that's  one 
satisfaction.  I've  hurt  no  one  save  myself — and  Bess. 
And  I  don't  know  whether  she's  hurt  or  not — now.  I 
think  that  she  is  beyond  being  hurt  by  any  action  of 
mine.  She  seems  to  have  arrived  at  a  state  where  such 
things  don't  matter.  Not  that  she  has  lost  the  capacity 
for  feeling,  but  she  has  got  down  to  some  solid  basis 
of  fact  that  I  can't  touch  or  even  imagine.  These  things 
seem  to  pass  over  her.  Think  what  her  life  is — what  it 
has  been!  And  it's  all  my  fault.  She's  made  a  rotten 


340  FLOOD  TIDE 

marriage,  given  up  everything  she  once  hoped  for — been 
a  failure  in  every  way.  And  yet  she  has  made  a  success 
of  it.  Out  of  all  the  ruin  that  other  people  have  made 
of  her  life — first  her  father,  then  her  mother,  then  myself 
and  lastly  Learoyd — we've  all  had  a  hand  in  it — out  of 
all  this  she  has  built  up  something  and  is  happy.  I've 
always  gone  along  as  I  pleased,  consulted  nothing  but  my 
own  caprice — and  I'm  not  happy.  I've  gone  from  one 
self-made  illusion  to  the  next,  and  got  nothing  out  of  it. 
She  has  gone  from  one  disillusionment  to  another  and  is 
content.  I've  ridden  the  crest  of  the  wave;  now  it  has 
fallen  and  I'm  jetsam — just  jetsam.  It  all  comes  home 
to  me  at  once;  I've  done  nothing  more  in  life  than  make 
myself  unhappy  and  make  her  unhappy  too.  ...  I  want 
to  make  it  up  to  her — and  I  know  that  I  can  do  that  no 
more  than  I  can  change  the  course  of  the  stars  by  blowing 
bubbles  at  them.  I  don't  regret  my  own  failure — I  can 
stand  that — but  the  realization  that  I've  made  a  failure 
of  her  life  too It  hurts,  I  tell  you,  it  hurts." 

"I  know,  I  know,"  said  Stowell  as  I  paused.  "We  all 
feel  that  way  sometimes.  Everything  seems  wrong." 

"You  don't  know,"  I  answered.  "You  can't.  Your 
wrongs  are  all  little  ones,  not  the  product  of  a  lifetime." 

"Are  you  sure  that  you  are  right  now?"  he  asked. 

"No;  I'm  not.  Perhaps  I'm  going  to  the  other  ex- 
treme. I'm  sure  of  nothing,  absolutely  nothing  save  that 
I  was  wrong  before.  Look  here " 

He  held  up  a  warning  hand.  "Not  so  loud,"  he  said. 
The  waiter  passed  us  with  a  curious  glance;  I  became 
aware  that  a  beefy  necked  man  in  a  celluloid  collar  was 
listening  visibly  from  a  neighboring  table. 

"I  don't  care  whether  they  hear  or  not,"  I  said.  "They 
probably  think  I'm  drunk."  But  Stowell's  interruption 
had  broken  my  thread  of  thought  and  we  sat  silent  for 
a  time,  to  the  evident  displeasure  of  the  fat  necked 
person. 


FLOOD  TIDE  341 

"There's  The  Stores,"  Stowell  resumed.  "You've  been 
a  success  in  that." 

"I  wonder,"  I  answered  slowly.  "Is  money  making 
your  idea  of  success?" 

He  stumbled  and  groped  for  a  reply ;  I  cut  in  midway 
on  his  answer.  "I  don't  mean  to  criticize  your  standards. 
I  should  have  asked  that  question  in  a  different  way;  is 
that  the  right  idea  of  success?  And  have  I  been  success- 
ful even  in  that?  Have  I  created  better  things — even 
there?  I  have  imagined  things,  not  created  them.  You 
and  Marks  and  the  rest  did  the  creating.  Any  fool  can 
tell  how  things  should  be;  making  them  so  is  another 
matter.  The  Stores  is  the  work  of  the  men  who  did  the 
building,  not  the  one  fool  who  did  the  imaginative  part 
of  the  work." 

"How  much  would  any  of  us  accomplish  unaided?"  he 
asked. 

"Not  much,"  I  concluded.  "But  that  is  beside  the  main 
question.  Granted  that  the  creation  of  The  Stores  was 
mine.  Is  that  on  the  credit  or  debit  side  of  the  ledger? 
.  .  .  Damn  The  Stores !  .  .  .  Bess  and  I  had  our  first 
break  over  that ;  I  thought  more  of  The  Stores  than  I  did 
of  her.  I  had  my  choice,  and  I  made  it.  A  good  choice; 
I've  hated  The  Stores  since  the  day  I  made  my  choice 
between  that  and  Bess.  .  .  .  Has  The  Stores  brown  hair 
and  blue  eyes  and  a  dear,  twisted,  one-sided  smile?  Does 
the  thought  of  The  Stores  bring  tears  to  my  eyes?  Can 
this  creation  of  mine  talk  to  me?  be  my  wife?  bear  my 
children?  .  .  .  Christ!" 

Through  a  misty  blur  I  saw  Stowell  look  at  me  cur- 
iously. "I  wish  that  I  knew  the  other  side  of  this,"  he 
said  slowly.  "If  I  knew  what  Bess  really  thought — 

"I've  told  you,"  I  said  wearily.  "And  would  it  matter 
if  you  did  know?" 

"Perhaps  not.  But  I'd  b'ke  to  know.  .  .  .  Let's  go 
home  and  get  some  sleep." 


342  FLOOD  TIDE 


m 

Gradually,  as  we  worked  along,  we  untangled  the  con- 
fusion that  Marks  had  left  behind  him,  finding  loose  ends 
and  running  them  down  to  their  origin,  slowly  producing 
some  semblance  of  order  out  of  chaos.  He  had  allowed 
the  business '  to  fall  into  a  state  of  incredible  disorder 
during  these  last  few  months;  the  fact  that  The  Stores 
had  held  together  at  all  was  a  tribute  to  the  strength 
with  which  he  had  built.  Subsidiary  companies  had  fallen 
away  and  developed  to  cross  purposes;  contracts  had 
been  neglected;  everything  had  been  postponed  to  the  last 
possible  moment  and  then  apparently  forgotten.  There 
had  been  a  relaxation,  a  slackening  of  the  central  pur- 
pose which  had  held  the  network  together;  even  had 
Marks  survived  the  first  crash  of  the  war  the  problem 
would  still  have  been  much  the  same.  Our  work  was 
threefold;  we  gathered  in  the  tangled  reins,  sought  an 
appraisal  of  the  damage — and  prepared  to  abandon  the 
structure  to  Greenwood  and  Lyons. 

I  can't  blame  Marks  for  this  confusion.  I  can  imagine 
what  depths  of  hell  he  must  have  gone  through  as  the  final 
day  drew  nearer  and  nearer;  by  some  freak  of  chance  the 
greater  part  of  his  obligations  had  fallen  due  on  the  first 
day  of  August.  And  then  the  news  of  war,  the  closing 
of  the  market,  the  vanishing  of  the  final  hope —  He 
suffered  in  full.  There  would  have  been  sufficient  excuse 
for  neglect  in  the  period  of  depression  which  preceded 
the  war;  with  the  added  burden  of  slowly  approaching 
disaster  he  must  have  lived  for  nearly  a  year  in  a  state  of 
inconceivable  mental  torment.  At  another  time  I  might 
have  felt  bitterly  toward  him  for  this  blind  misuse  of  what 
we  held  in  common,  this  wanton  destruction  of  our  struc- 
ture; as  it  was,  I  felt  only  sympathetic  regret.  He,  too, 
had  bungled. 

Greenwood  and  Lyons  failed  to  help  us.  At  first  they 
were  very  volvble  with  explanations,  with  surmises,  with 


FLOOD  TIDE  343 

vaguely  condolent  reflections  on  Marks'  sanity.  They 
knew  nothing;  how  should  they?  Stowell  had  suspected 
that  they  were  in  some  way  responsible,  and  as  a  sus- 
picion we  let  it  rest.  What  promises  they  held  forth  to 
Marks  I  do  not  know.  There  may  have  been  no  promises ; 
perhaps,  like  myself,  they  merely  were  instrumental  in 
affording  Marks  his  opportunity. 

But  their  assistance,  if  they  did  assist,  was  merely  a 
minor  cause  of  Marks'  wild  career  of  speculation.  Dur- 
ing the  first  week  we  found  the  real  cause;  even  before 
that  we  had  found  hints  in  scribbled  memoranda,  brief 
notes  in  Marks'  desk — all  segments  of  the  circumference 
and  all  bearing  on  a  common  center.  We  guessed  at  the 
center,  and  finally  Stowell  found  it. 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  as  I  returned  from  a  trip  to  the 
warehouse.  He  shoved  aside  a  pile  of  papers  at  his 
elbow  and  spread  out  a  dilapidated  blank  book.  As  he 
flipped  over  the  covers  I  looked  over  his  shoulder  and 
recognized  it  as  the  old  notebook  which  I  had  kept  at 
Hatherly's,  the  book  which  had  contained  the  germ  of 
The  Stores. 

"That?"  I  said.  "I  haven't  seen  it  for  years.  Where 
was  it?" 

"In  the  wall  safe — at  the  bottom,  under  a  pile  of  stuff. 
Marks  hid  it  there,  I  think." 

"Why  should  he  hide  it?" 

"You'll  see.     Look  it  over — start  here." 

The  book,  as  he  handed  it  to  me,  stood  open  at  a  great 
numeral  "II";  I  frowned  over  that  and  endeavored  to 
recall  setting  it  down.  I  ran  back  over  the  familiar 
sheets ;  the  numeral  "I"  was  prefaced  to  those  in  my  own 
handwriting.  I  turned  to  the  second  section  again;  it 
was  in  Marks'  neat,  angular  hand,  each  double  page  a 
complete  summary  of  some  detail  of  the  second  web. 

"Evidently  kept  as  we  went  along,"  I  commented,  "al- 
though I  fail  to  recognize  some  of  these  details." 

Stowell  nodded.     "Go  on,"  he  said. 


344  FLOOD  TIDE 

Another  great  numeral ;  the  third  section.  I  found  this 
entirely  incomprehensible;  across  the  head  of  each  sheet 
was  the  name  of  a  city — Philadelphia,  Cleveland, 
Chicago,  Pittsburg — almost  twenty  in  all,  and  below  each 
name  were  orderly  columns  of  figures  filling  the  page. 

"What's  all  this?"  I  asked  irritably.  "A  crypto- 
gram?" 

"The  figures,  you  mean?     Filing  sections." 

"But  we  use  the  alphabetical  system — always  have. 
Has  he  changed  that?" 

"That  puzzled  me  at  first,  until  I  recognized  it  as  the 
same  system  we  use  at  the  office.  You  remember  telling 
me  that  you  had  outgrown  the  old  filing  room  and  were 
using  it  for  dead  material?" 

"That  was  two  years  ago,"  I  remembered. 

"That's  where  this  new  index  system  comes  in.  Marks 
threw  out  the  dead  stuff  and  used  the  space  for  himself." 

"But  why  Cleveland  and  Albany  and  these  other 
places?  What  have  they  to  do  with  us?" 

"Nothing — now."  He  turned  over  the  pile  of  papers 
which  he  had  shoved  to  one  side.  "But  they  might  have 
meant  something.  I  went  down  to  the  old  filing  room 
while  you  were  out  and  took  a  survey.  This,"  and  he 
lifted  the  pile,  "is  about  one  tenth  of  the  stuff  on  Cleve- 
land alone.  .  .  .  Marks  planned  to  duplicate  The  Stores 
in  each  of  those  cities,  you  see.  ...  I  know,  it  sounds 
wild,  doesn't  it?  But  it  was  all  planned — and  I  almost 
believe  that  he  would  have  gone  through  with  it." 

We  looked  at  each  other. 

"The  thing  is  impossible,"  I  said.  "That  would  run 
into  millions,  Dick." 

"Impossible?  I'm  not  sure.  .  .  .  But  that  explains 
his  speculation.  I  imagine  that  he  intended  to  come  to 
you  with  plans  fully  developed,  convince  you — oh,  I  know 
that  he  could  have — and  then  ride  down  your  final  ob- 
jection of  expense." 


FLOOD  TIDE  345 

"Perhaps,"  I  admitted,  "but — it's  imagination  running 
wild,  Dick." 

"Perhaps.    But  go  on." 

I  turned  again  to  the  book.  Beyond  the  third  section 
was  another.  This  fourth  section  is  difficult  to  define;  as 
it  stood  in  the  book  it  was  no  more  than  a  shadowy  in- 
completeness, an  inchoate  expression  of  an  idea  which 
had  never  emerged  from  the  shadows  and  taken  on  definite 
form.  It  reached  out  beyond  the  third  section ;  how  far  it 
reached  is  doubtful.  There  were  fragmentary  notes,  dis- 
connected words  and  phrases,  hieroglyphic  snatches  of 
diagrams,  all  mingled  and  jumbled  together.  Some  pages 
were  black  with  penciled  notes;  others  contained  single 
phrases  standing  forth  alone.  What  it  all  meant  is  still 
in  doubt;  I  believe  that  the  end  which  Marks  con- 
templated was  the  acquisition  of  the  entire  selling  end  of 
business  in  the  United  States.  And  I'm  not  sure  of  that, 
so  disjointed  and  inconclusive  was  this  fourth  section. 
Perhaps  that  is  nothing  more  than  my  interpretation  of  it. 
This  book  had  been  his  confessional,  his  confidant;  how 
much  of  what  he  set  down  was  merely  a  mental  conception ; 
impossible  of  completion,  I  have  no  means  of  knowing. 
There  were  notes  which  leaped  out  ahead,  unconnected 
with  anything  else,  vague  flashes  of  ideas  and  possibilities 
caught  in  passing.  Only  Marks  could  have  explained  it 
all.  It  was  wonderful,  and  at  the  same  time  infinitely 
pathetic.  Pasted  to  one  page,  and  with  a  great  question 
mark  against  it,  was  a  life  insurance  calculation.  Some 
inconclusive  doubt  must  have  been  present  in  Marks' 
mind;  what  he  had  mapped  out  was  enough  to  occupy 
three  lives. 

As  I  pieced  together  these  indistinct  odds  and  ends 
and  got  some  idea  of  his  fantastic  yet  plausible  plan,  this 
vast  Orion's  belt  of  stars  spread  across  the  country  with 
interlacing  tips  against  the  dim  background  of  this 
greater  plan,  I  forgot  all  Marks'  petty  mannerisms,  once 
so  annoying.  I  had  disliked  him  during  these  last  years 


346  FLOOD  TIDE 

for  his  planless  grasping;  now  I  saw  the  reason  for  it. 

"I  wish  that  I  had  understood  him  better,"  I  said 
soberly,  as  I  laid  the  book  aside.  .  .  . 

This  was  late  in  August.  The  clearing  up  of  the 
wreckage  of  The  Stores  took  three  months  in  all,  but, 
beyond  certain  minor  incidents,  my  memories  of  this  time 
are  essentially  confusion. 

I  realized  that  I  had  lost  more  than  The  Stores.  My 
old  life  was  ended.  The  Arrowrock,  the  Shadow,  all  the 
old,  careless  existence  of  these  past  few  years,  now  be- 
came impossible.  I  was  shut  off  from  the  past  by  an 
impassable  barrier;  the  future  appeared  ahead  as  a  gray 
wall  beyond  which  nothing  was  visible. 

That,  I  think,  was  the  real  cause  of  my  breakdown. 
I  had  always  lived  half  in  the  present,  half  in  the  future. 
Now  my  present  was  a  hell  of  torturing  memories,  my 
future  an  intangible  non-existence.  Even  when  work  had 
been  most  distasteful  to  me  it  had  been  a  future  possi- 
bility, to  turn  to  when  I  should  tire  of  the  present.  Now 
I  was  denied  even  that  comfort. 

One  by  one  my  holds  on  the  present  loosened.  Kave- 
naugh  brought  the  Shadow  down  from  Bath.  She  lay  at 
Evans'  yards  until  Chris  Blake  made  me  an  offer  for  her. 
I  took  it.  I  needed  the  money,  and  it  was  evident  that 
my  future  income  would  leave  no  margin  for  her  upkeep. 
I  made  a  furtive  trip  down  to  the  Arrowrock  and  ar- 
ranged to  have  the  windows  of  the  Shack  boarded  up.  I 
borrowed  money  from  Stowell  to  pay  the  carpenter.  .  .  . 

During  all  this  time  the  memory  of  Elizabeth  was 
always  with  me.  However  far  I  circled  away,  I  always 
came  back  to  that.  .  .  . 

But  most  bitter  of  all  was  the  realization  that  Marks' 
failure  was  my  fault.  I  knew  that  had  I  stayed  at  work 
as  I  should  have,  had  I  taken  even  a  passing  interest  in 
his  plans,  the  crash  need  never  have  occurred.  .  .  .  Once 
or  twice,  engrossed  in  disentangling  some  rebellious  snarl, 


FLOOD  TIDE  347 

I  forgot  that  he  was  beyond  human  call,  turned  to  con- 
sult him — and  remembered. 

As  I  have  said,  only  a  few  of  the  events  of  those  last 
three  months  remain  in  my  memory.  Stowell  says  that 
at  times  I  talked  and  muttered  to  myself,  conducting 
fragmentary  arguments  with  invisible  opponents.  Per- 
haps I  did;  I  have  no  remembrance  of  it.  I  know  that 
during  the  last  month  I  was  unable  to  sleep.  A  little 
purple  devil  rode  mahout  on  each  eyeball,  prodding  in- 
cessantly. I  do  remember  long  walks  during  sleepless 
nights,  walking  briskly  and  jerkily  about  the  city,  seeking 
forget  fulness.  Once  I  must  have  wandered  as  far  up  town 
as  the  warehouse ;  I  seem  to  remember  surveying  it  for  a 
long  time  from  across  the  street,  a  silent  gray  block, 
unlit  save  for  the  creeping  glow  worm  of  the  watchman 
on  his  rounds,  a  flickering  light  beyond  the  shifting  gray 
phantasy  of  mingled  snow  and  sleet.  This  must  have 
been  during  the  last  days  of  the  settlement  period,  the 
days  when  people  turned  to  look  at  me  on  the  streets. 

I  remember  also  that  the  future  preyed  on  me  with 
positive  terror  as  it  drew  nearer.  What  would  come — 
after  the  untangling  of  the  present  problem?  This 
after-life  loomed  ahead,  inescapable,  a  blank  gray  wall, 
approaching  daily,  inexorably. 

Through  it  all  I  had  the  feeling  of  a  man  preparing 
for  inevitable  death,  oppressed  by  the  knowledge  that  the 
world  would  go  on  much  the  same  after  his  passage,  face 
to  face  with  the  unsolvable  problem  of  the  beyond — and 
horribly  afraid. 

IV 

Stowell  irritated  me  at  times.  He  watched  me.  He 
was  sympathetically  bright  and  cheerful.  He  tried  to 
help  me  by  suggesting  futures.  And  the  net  result  of 
his  efforts  was  to  aggravate  my  mental  confusion.  He 
talked  interminably  of  his  own  work,  trying  to  interest 


348  FLOOD  TIDE 

me;  once,  at  least,  he  asked  me  point  blank  to  come  in 
with  him.  His  work  was  good,  I  knew ;  it  offered  a  future. 
But  I  had  settled  that  definitely ;  unable  to  order  my  own 
life,  I  was  unfit  to  meddle  with  the  lives  of  others. 

"But  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  he  asked  me  more 
than  once.  And  then:  "Oh,  the  devil!  That's  no 
answer." 

There  was  no  answer. 

I  must  have  puzzled  him.  I  overheard  the  tail  end 
of  a  discussion  between  him  and  Fisher,  a  discussion 
which  evidently  referred  to  me. 

"There  ought  to  be  some  way  of  getting  him  awake," 
Stowell  concluded. 

"I've  heard,"  said  Fisher  judicially,  "that  in  such 
cases  a  sudden  shock  of  some  sort  does  the  trick.  And 
since  you  say  that  he's  worried  chiefly  over  something 
outside  The  Stores " 

I  imagined  him  as  frowning  helpfully. 

"Um,"  came  Stowell's  voice.  And  after  a  pause: 
"Perhaps." 

They  were  ostentatiously  engaged  in  other  matters 
when  I  entered. 

After  that  Stowell  ceased  to  trouble  me  with  inquiries 
and  suggestions.  He  continued  to  watch  me,  continued 
to  treat  me  as  a  sick  child,  to  be  humored  and  spoken  to 
softly,  but  the  irritation  of  his  interference  was  past. 

I  depended  on  him  more  and  more.  Once  he  was 
absent  for  three  days  without  explanation;  lacking  his 
controlling  hand  I  fought  with  Greenwood,  fought  with 
Lyons,  made  an  irritable  beast  of  myself  about  the  offices 
and  was  nearly  insane  when  he  returned. 

He  came  back  to  find  me  glaring  at  Greenwood  across 
the  broad  table  in  the  inner  office.  Greenwood  returned 
my  glare  with  interest  and  we  were  both  speechless  with 
contempt.  His  senseless  quibbling  over  petty  details  had 
brought  me  to  the  end  of  my  patience.  Stowell's  entrance 
snapped  the  tension. 


FLOOD  TIDE  349 

"You're  back,  eh?"  snapped  Greenwood.  "Glad  of  it; 
we  can  talk  sense  now."  He  slammed  off,  with  a  back- 
ward glance  of  contempt  in  my  direction. 

"How  goes  it?"  asked  Dick  cheerfully. 

"As  you  see.  Greenwood  has  been  egging  me  on  to 
commit  murder.  Where  have  you  been?" 

"Away.  Just  away.  I'll  tell  you  about  it  sometime. 
.  .  .  What  were  you  two  wild  men  scrapping  about?" 

He  would  give  no  further  explanation.  .  .  . 

The  last  day  came.  My  last  connection  with  The 
Stores  was  severed,  the  last  line  cast  off.  Greenwood 
made  the  last  possible  concession,  grudgingly,  to  be  sure, 
but  still  he  made  it.  No  doubt  he  considered  me  a  des- 
perate man. 

"Well,"  he  said  despairingly,  "as  you  say.  It's  more 
than  we  should  let  you  have,  but —  He  signed  with 

the  air  of  a  man  doing  an  act  of  charity.  Then  he 
smiled  engulfingly  and  extended  a  huge  moist  hand. 
Apparently  he  was  ready  to  consider  our  past  antag- 
onism as  a  business  ruse.  "Fortunes  of  war,"  he  grinned. 

I  overlooked  his  hand.  "May  I  clear  out  my  desk,  or 
do  you  want  that  too?" 

He  glared  at  me  a  moment,  his  fingers  twitching.  "We 
want  no  reminders  of  you,"  he  said;  then  stamped  off 
to  exercise  his  new  authority. 

So  Stowell  sat  and  watched  me  as  I  rummaged  through 
the  desk,  two  great  waste  baskets  on  either  side  of  me. 
Through  the  half  open  door  came  the  old  subdued  mur- 
mur and  rustle ;  a  clerk  passed  with  two  heaping  baskets 
of  papers  on  the  way  to  the  filing  room ;  his  contented 
whistle  made  a  little  eddy  of  sound  in  the  silence.  Every- 
thing went  on  as  usual.  Stowell  glanced  nervously  at 
his  watch. 

"Don't  stay ;  the  show  is  over." 

"Are  you  in  a  hurry  to  get  rid  of  me?"  he  asked,  and 
pulled  out  his  watch  again. 

"No.     But  put  up  that  cursed  watch,  will  you?"  I 


350  FLOOD  TIDE 

asked.     "Time  flies,   I  know,  without  your  reminders." 

I  went  on,  finished  and  disposed  of  one  drawer  and 
started  on  the  next,  sweeping  great  masses  of  papers 
into  the  baskets  and  tossing  aside  the  few  things  that  I 
wished  to  retain. 

"What  now?"  asked  Stowell. 

"I've  told '  you — nothing." 

"Oh  nonsense !"  he  said,  and  made  an  impatient  gesture. 

I  was  too  tired  to  flare  up  in  reply.  The  gray  wall 
of  the  future  was  very  near;  my  hold  on  the  present  had 
dwindled  to  a  bare  ledge,  slippery  under  my  feet. 

He  watched  me  for  a  moment  in  silence;  then  went  on 
in  a  new  line.  He  bullied  me. 

"You'll  do  what  I  say,"  he  threatened.  "Go  back  to 
Whitehaven  and  patch  yourself  up.  You've  got  the  old 
house  left  and  a  half  interest  in  the  store — beside  what 
you've  saved  from  this.  Then  come  back  and  I'll  set  you 
to  work.  You  hear  that?" 

I  gave  no  sign. 

"Go  back  and  make  it  up  with  Elizabeth,"  he  went  on, 
without  mercy.  "Drop  this  King  Cophetua  attitude. 
You  were  a  fool  and  you  know  it.  You've  broken  with 
her  twice — once  because  of  the  future  and  once  because 
of  the  past.  Try  living  in  the  present  for  a  while.  You've 
never  tried  that ;  you  refuse  to  try  it.  You're  up  against 
a  dead  wall — no  future.  Run  up  another  wall  and  shut 
out  the  past." 

He  paused  for  effect.  Why  couldn't  he  let  me  alone 
for  this  last  hour? 

"Try  it,  will  you?"  he  pleaded. 

I  went  on,  blindly  sorting  over  a  white  blur  of  papers, 
choosing  and  discarding  without  seeing. 

"If  you  could  see  her  again " 

"Don't.     I  never  shall." 

"You  won't  go  back,  then?" 

I  shook  my  head.     The  effort  set  the  room  swaying 


FLOOD  TIDE  351 

and  reeling  about  me;  I  recovered  my  balance  with  diffi- 
culty. The  pain  over  my  eyes  had  grown  more  intense 
during  these  last  days;  the  purple  devils  were  full  size 
now  and  had  grown  expert  with  practice.  Also  they  had 
developed  voices,  and  shouted  comments  to  each  other, 
commenting  on  the  progress  of  the  ever  nearing  gray 
wall. 

A  shadowy  form  veiled  the  half  open  door  for  a  mo- 
ment, peered  in  curiously,  and  was  gone.  Stowell  rose 
and  stood  over  me. 

"I  hoped — no  matter,"  he  said.     "Good-by." 

"Good-by." 

The  door  clicked  softly  behind  him.  Even  Dick  had 
deserted  me.  This  was  the  end. 

I  emptied  the  last  drawer.  In  it  were  a  few  scattered 
papers,  and,  at  the  bottom,  the  dog-eared  old  notebook 
whose  contents  had  been  the  cause  of  my  failure  and 
success.  I  swept  the  papers  to  the  floor;  they  were 
worthless  now.  But  the  book  ...  I  stared  at  it  for  a 
moment,  then  spread  it  apart  and  tore  it  to  pieces.  The 
door  behind  me  creaked  softly  as  I  ripped  up  page  after 
page,  tearing  my  dreams  and  Marks'  dreams  to  tattered 
fragments.  The  last  page  fluttered  down. 

I  wheeled  about  in  my  chair,  irrevocably  shut  off  from 
all  the  past.  The  door  opened  slowly;  through  it,  as  I 
stared,  came  Elizabeth.  Uncertain,  flushed,  with  a  faint 
shadow  of  that  old  one-sided  smile,  she  came  toward  me. 
Behind  her  Stowell's  anxious  face  appeared. 

I  rose  unsteadily.  Through  the  door,  obscuring 
Stowell's  face,  came  what  I  had  dreaded — the  gray  wall 
of  mist  which  I  had  imagined  as  the  future  beyond  the 
end  of  The  Stores.  It  came  on,  a  blank  reality,  as  I 
watched  in  terror.  It  passed  Elizabeth;  she  became  an 
indistinct  figure,  reaching  appealing  arms  toward  me 
through  the  dim  whiteness.  It  advanced  swiftly,  noise- 
lessly, horribly,  like  the  gray  walls  of  evening  fog  which 


352  FLOOD  TIDE 

Dick  and  I  had  watched  from  the  cliffs  long  ago.  It 
flowed  around  me  and  the  world  vanished.  In  the  gray 
dusk  strange  antediluvian  beasts  moaned  and  yammered 
— endlessly. 


Biologists  have  a  lordly  way  of  dismissing  great 
stretches  of  time  with  a  careless  wave  of  the  hand. 

"Three  million  years,  perhaps  four,  and  we  have " 

perhaps  a  new  kink  in  the  tail  of  an  arthropod.  The 
earth  whirled  some  millions  of  times  on  its  axis ;  the  moon 
cooled,  contracted,  and  ceased  to  fill  so  large  a  part  of 
the  heavens;  somewhere  in  one  distant  corner  of  the  sky 
two  stars  collided,  struggled  a  while,  spawned  a  brood  of 
planets  and  settled  down  to  respectable  married  life. 
Meanwhile  the  arthropod,  squirming  contentedly  in  the 
steaming  mud,  perhaps  developed  an  extra  pair  of  ribs 
or  turned  his  eyes  outward.  One  envies  him  his  careless 
expenditure  of  time. 

So  with  this  gray  fog  period.  Time  passed,  and  noth- 
ing happened.  Eons  passed;  eons  marked  one  from  the 
other  by  the  slow  alternation  of  dim  light  and  faint 
shadow  within  the  fog.  There  was  no  time  in  this  gray 
future,  merely  this  imperceptibly  slow  tarnishing  and 
brightening  of  the  silver  gray  dimness.  Yet  time  passed, 
somewhere  beyond  the  gray  boundaries,  as  a  river  flows 
unseen  below  its  covering  of  ice.  This  flow  was  percep- 
tible but  immeasurable ;  I  had  no  knowledge  whether  thes* 
indistinct  boundaries  marked  the  passage  of  days  or  <v 
centuries. 

Still  there  was  a  minor  division  of  this  period.  When 
I  entered  the  mist  it  undulated,  swirled,  bearing  me  help- 
less in  a  weird  saraband.  There  was  a  distant  yammering 
and  crying  in  the  dim  twilight,  a  subdued  ululant  lamen- 
tation which  ultimately  faded  and  became  lost  in  silence. 

With  the  passage  of  this  inarticulate  mouthing  there 


FLOOD  TIDE  353 

was  a  cessation  of  all  movement,  a  dead  calm  in  which 
I  moved  disembodied.  The  mist  flattened,  ceased  swirl- 
ing, became  thick,  viscid,  thicker  than  any  earthly  fog. 
It  possessed  a  quality  of  resistance;  movement  required 
an  immense  effort,  an  immense  mental  effort.  After  a 
century  or  so  I  became  convinced  of  the  futility  of  effort. 
In  some  curious  way  I  was  content. 

I  was  content  because  I  was  not  alone  in  the  fog. 
There  seemed  another  near  me;  intangible,  unseen,  un- 
heard, perceptible  only  through  intuition.  This  presence 
comforted  me.  It  was  my  one  grip  on  reality.  I  clung  to 
it;  to  lose  that  was  to  lose  everything. 

During  the  first  part  of  the  fog,  before  it  ceased  flow- 
ing and  undulating,  I  was  obsessed  by  something  which 
needed  explanation  on  my  part;  something  which  seemed 
explicable  and  yet  beyond  explanation.  At  length  I 
seemed  to  make  myself  understood.  My  explanation  was 
vague,  speechless,  incoherent;  an  explanation  of  some- 
thing which  I  myself  understood  none  too  clearly.  I 
seemed  to  reiterate,  to  grope  vainly  for  modes  of  ex- 
pression. Always  I  arrived  at  the  same  end,  an  end 
which  always  satisfied  this  unseen  presence  beyond  reach 
in  the  fog.  .  .  .  Presently  I  would  become  restless  and 
take  up  the  thread  of  explanation  again. 

Finally  this  too  ceased.  My  explanation  ended.  At 
the  same  time,  I  think,  came  the  cessation  of  the  restless 
movement  of  the  fog.  I  waited,  confident  that  somewhere 
beyond  the  present  grayness  was  dawn.  .  .  . 

But  this  reconstruction  is,  at  least,  largely  problem- 
atical. I  know  that  there  was  a  fog.  No  doubt  at  the 
time  I  moved  in  a  limited  area  of  clearness,  seeing  im- 
mediate objects  vividly,  perhaps  seeing  the  past  and 
future  clearly.  All  that  has  been  sponged  away  from  my 
memory,  wiped  clean  save  for  these  faint  and  shadowy 
lines. 

And  at  last,  as  abruptly  as  it  had  appeared,  the  fog 

vanished. 


354  FLOOD  TIDE 


I  looked  out  through  a  window,  a  low,  broad-ledged 
window.  Yellow  hangings  swayed  slowly  on  either  side. 
In  the  air  was  an  indefinable  scent  of  spring,  of  awakened 
earth.  Through  the  upper  panes,  as  the  curtains  swayed, 
I  saw  a  low-swung  branch  with  broad  leaves  and  opening 
spires  of  white  and  red  blossoms.  Beyond  were  huddled 
roofs,  further  still,  a  glimpse  of  brown  rocks  and  blue 
water.  A  white  sail  passed. 

All  this  puzzled  me  beyond  measure,  for  my  last  mem- 
ory was — was — there  confusion  seized  me.  I  remembered 

an  intolerably  aching  head.  But  before  that Some 

one  had  carried  me  indoors,  with  long  shining  braids  over 
a  tartan  shawl — or  had  there  been  a  gray  sky,  occasional 
drifting  flakes  of  sooty  snow,  and  a  gray  fog  swirling 
through  an  opened  door?  I  decided  in  favor  of  the  shawl 
and  shining  braids.  There  had  been  a  fog,  I  remembered, 
and  many  bad  dreams. 

I  waited.  Presently,  I  felt,  I  would  see  a  tall,  black- 
bearded  figure  pass  beyond  the  hedge.  He  would  click 
the  latch  of  the  gate ;  then,  perceiving  me,  his  brows  would 
relax;  he  would  smile  with  a  flash  of  teeth  and  wave 
to  me. 

Then  these  confused  impressions  vanished  in  face  of 
a  momentous  discovery.  I  discovered  my  legs,  stretched 
before  me  on  a  low  stool,  wonderfully  long  and  decorated 
at  the  further  end  with  stained  canvas  shoes.  Assuredly 
these  were  not  mine.  I  contemplated  them  dubiously  for 
a  long  time,  then  ventured  on  a  trial.  I  moved  my  toes, 
and  one  foot  nodded  at  me  in  confirmation.  That  was  a 
trick,  I  knew.  Some  one  had  pulled  a  string.  I  tried 
again;  the  same  result.  I  became  crafty  and  moved  my 
toes  twice  in  succession.  The  absurdly  distant  foot 
nodded  twice.  Conviction  overcame  me. 

"That,"  I  said  firmly,  "is  my  foot." 

Copernicus,  first  enunciating  his  belief  that  the  earth 


FLOOD  TIDE  355 

revolved  about  the  sun,  might  have  spoken  in  the  same 
tone. 

"But  good  Lord,  how  I  have  grown !"  I  added. 

For  a  time  I  wandered  in  this  border  land,  half  con- 
vinced that  I  was  no  longer  a  little  boy,  half  dubious 
as  to  the  reality  of  the  bad  dreams.  Then,  very  much 
puzzled  and  suddenly  wearied  of  it  all,  I  fell  asleep. 

I  awoke  again,  later  in  the  same  day ;  the  shadows  had 
wheeled  about  in  the  garden  and  the  distant  sea  was 
darker  in  tone.  A  stray  shaft  of  golden  sunlight  pene- 
trated the  room,  illuminating  something  which  had 
escaped  my  notice  on  that  first  awakening.  I  seemed  to 
face  another  window,  a  casement  opening  on  a  distant, 
misty  seascape.  A  great  gray  sea  lifted  a  gleaming 
shoulder  in  the  foreground ;  a  wheeling  gull  rose  from  the 
valley  of  shadow  beyond;  further,  shining  waves  receded 
in  misty  recessional ;  a  thicker  duskiness  half  hid  and  half 
revealed  sails  shimmering  faintly  in  the  silver  twilight. 
And,  still  beyond,  a  distant,  elusive  glimpse  of  a  goal 
which  shifted  and  throbbed  and  changed  in  the  changing 
light  even  as  I  watched. 

For  a  bare  moment  I  faced  this  window  on  a  faerie  sea, 
then  saw  the  litter  of  brushes  and  tubes  and  the  easel 
behind.  The  seascape  shifted  plane  abruptly  and  became 
a  painting.  A  good  painting,  I  decided,  superlatively 
good;  in  handling  of  warm  color  and  translucent  mist 
faintly  reminiscent  of  some  of  my  own.  But  much  better. 
And  not  mine ;  I  saw  it  for  the  first  time. 

I  turned  to  the  other  window  and  awoke  to  full  recog- 
nition of  the  present.  The  tree  beyond  the  window  was 
the  horse  chestnut  tree  of  my  boyhood,  the  tree  from 
which  Jason  had  carved  the  figurehead  of  the  Argo,  a 
tree  articulate  with  the  low  zooning  of  bees  humming  from 
blossom-spire  to  blossom-spire.  This  was  home,  I  recog- 
nized. How  I  had  reached  here  failed  to  puzzle  me ;  the 
bewildered  groping  of  my  first  awakening  had  been  sup- 
planted by  a  deep  content. 


356  FLOOD  TIDE 

But  one  sensation  of  that  first  awakening  remained. 
I  waited,  not  for  my  father,  but  for  some  one  else.  A 
restless  expectancy  stirred  me.  The  shadows  unfolded 
imperceptibly  as  I  watched ;  a  ragged  procession  of  white 
sails  drew  slowly  in  past  the  distant  brown  rocks ;  the 
sea  beyond  grew  ever  darker,  the  soft  line  of  the  horizon 
ever  fainter.  '  The  bees  departed  and  the  talking  tree  was 
hushed.  .  .  . 

And  at  last  beyond  the  hedge  appeared  the  one  I  had 
awaited — Elizabeth.  Memory  became  complete.  She 
passed  hurriedly  along,  her  face  turned  toward  the  house. 
The  gate  clicked;  she  approached  swiftly  along  the  nar- 
row path.  I  watched  from  behind  my  ambush  of  yellow 
curtains.  She  saw  me  and  her  pace  slackened;  she 
loitered,  as  though  suddenly  relieved  from  tension.  The 
lilac  clumps  along  the  path  engrossed  her  attention;  she 
broke  off  a  cluster  here  and  there,  then  came  on.  Outside 
the  window  she  paused,  leaning  on  the  sill,  her  face  level 
with  mine. 

"You've  finished  it  ?"  she  asked,  her  eyes  on  the  canvas 
behind  me. 

I  had  expected — I  don't  know  what;  perhaps  that  she 
would  be  surprised  to  see  me.  But  now  I  turned  in  be- 
wilderment to  the  canvas. 

"Is  it  mine?"  I  asked  after  a  moment. 

"Of  course."  A  faint  shadow  brushed  her  face. 
"Whose  should  it  be?" 

"I  don't  know.  But  mine I  don't  remember  it. 

I  just  woke  up,  Bess." 

"Woke  up!"  The  shadow  vanished,  supplanted  by  a 
swift  radiance.  She  looked  at  me,  one  brow  lifted  in 
perplexity,  her  eyes  troubled.  "Then  you  don't  re- 
member it?" 

"Not  a  single  brush  mark." 

"I  believe  you  are  awake."  She  smiled,  yet  with  a  hint 
of  tears  in  her  eyes. 

"Have  I  been  asleep  long?"     I  hesitated.     "I  seem  to 


FLOOD  TIDE  357 

remember— I  don't  know  what.  I  cleaned  up  my  desk- 
Dick  was  there — then  you  came — and  now  I'm  here." 

"You've  been — not  asleep,  but  away,  for  half  a  year," 
she  explained.  "Not  bodily,  but  mentally.  And  not  that, 
exactly.  You  didn't  remember  things.  You  didn't  recall 
anything  about  The  Stores — do  you  now?" 

"Yes.  It  was  a  grand  smash  up,  wasn't  it?  Nobody's 
fault  but  mine.  And  I'm  not  sorry,  except  for  Marks." 

"One  part  of  your  mind  was  taken  away  like — like  an 
ill-used  toy,"  she  went  on  after  a  moment.  "The  rest  was 
clear  enough.  You  remembered  everything  connected 
with  me,  but  nothing  else.  Not  even  Dick." 

"Then  I  was  partly  sane?    I  talked?" 

"A  great  deal,"  she  admitted  with  a  shade  of  re- 
luctance. 

Faint  memories  dawned  on  me.  "I  explained  some- 
thing?" 

She  nodded  slowly. 

"What?" 

But  she  was  silent,  her  face  turned  from  me,  a  clear 
silhouette  against  the  gathering  dusk.  My  question  went 
unanswered;  is  unanswered  to  this  day.  What  I  ex- 
plained, or  how,  during  that  period  of  gray  blankness,  is 
still  a  mystery  to  me.  There  was  much  to  explain ;  much 
more  to  atone  for.  .  .  .  But,  for  all  my  lack  of  memory, 
I  must  have  been  singularly  clear  minded  during  the  time 
of  fog.  Without  speech,  J  was  forgiven.  I  touched  her 
hand  timidly,  in  awkward  caress ;  she  turned  and  smiled 
mistily  at  me. 

"And  you  don't  remember  even  your  painting?  You've 
done  a  deal  of  that  lately.  Some  of  it  you've  sold.  This 

last  one "  She  looked  past  me  at  the  misty  canvas 

with  the  dim  silvery  sea,  the  half  seen  sails,  and  the  elusive 
goal  in  the  distance.  "Your  others  have  been  bits  about 
the  harbor  and  along  the  coast,  nothing  like  this.  It's 
bigger,  and  entirely  different.  But  you've  never  seen 
anything  like  it." 


358  FLOOD  TIDE 

"No — and  yes.  Perhaps  I  haven't  seen  it,  but  I've 
lived  it."  Even  as  Sorolla's  canvas  had  once  revealed  a 
future  to  me,  so  this  shimmering  gray  expanse  showed 
me  a  past,  my  own  past,  filled  with  blind  groping  through 
illusion  toward  a  half-sensed  goal.  That  goal  I  now 
recognized  w,ithin  arm's  length.  .  .  .  Then,  as  always, 
my  thoughts  reversed  a  step  and  turned  forward. 

"I  could  make  a  living  at  that,  I  suppose." 

She  nodded  happily.  "But  you  won't  have  to,  unless 
you  prefer.  Dick  has  been  up  once  or  twice.  He  still 
wants  you." 

"I'd  like  to  try  it.  His  work  is  out  of  my  line,  but 
still — it's  a  future.  "Swift  and  absolute  dejection  over- 
came me.  "That's  been  my  trouble.  Always  the  future. 
.  .  .  And  still  the  future.  Always  to-morrow." 

She  laughed  courageously. 

"That's  the  best  part  of  life,  after  all."  Her  hand, 
still  in  mine,  tightened  in  a  firm  pressure;  beyond  the 
house  roofs  a  sail,  pale  rose  in  the  sunset  glow,  passed 
slowly  in,  home  from  the  dark  sea. 


tEINTED  IN   THE   U.   S.   A. 


T 


HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  novels. 


The  Tree  of  Heaven 

By  MAY  SINCLAIR 

$j.6o 


A  masterly  analysis  of  the  younger  generation  in  Eng- 
land— the  generation  which  only  four  years  ago  was 
condemned  as  neurotic  and  decadent,  and  which  has 
vindicated  itself  by  such  devotion  and  simplicity  of 
heart  in  the  ordeal  of  war. 

One  appreciative  reader  writes: 

"What  delicate  keen  razor-like  blades  of  humor;  what  clear  lucid 
depths  of  pathos  and  understanding — what  cleaving  dissective  strokes, 
cutting  into  the  ludicrous  hodge-podge  of  human  psychology  and 
laying  bare  the  strata  veined  with  blood  and  stupidity! — it  is  im- 
mortally done." 


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Publishers       64-66  Fifth  Avenue        New  York 


Michael  Brother  of  Jerry 

BY  JACK  LONDON 

With  frontispiece  in  colors.     Decorated  cloth,  I2tno, 

"  The  kind  of  story  Jack  London  told  best,"  "  Pos- 
sesses in  a  nigh  degree  the  charm  of  Mr.  London's 
best  dog  stories,"  "  Mr.  London  puts  himself  to  the 
test  and  emerges  triumphant "  —  these  quotations 
from  The  New  York  Globe,  The  New  York  Tribune 
and  The  Boston  Transcript  express  the  general  opin- 
ion of  "Jerry  of  the  Islands."  Many  people,  even 
among  his  admirers,  had  grave  misgivings  as  to 
whether  Mr.  London  could  write  another  dog  story 
that  would  compare  favorably  with  "  The  Call  of  the 
Wild."  But  "  Jerry  of  the  Islands "  demonstrated 
that  he  could,  and  he  has  done  it  again  in  "  Michael 
Brother  of  Jerry."  Michael  comes  into  the  chron- 
icle of  Jerry's  life.  There  are  indications  in  the 
first  novel  that  Michael's  career  is  no  less  appealing 
and  unusual  than  Jerry's  own,  a  fact  well  borne  out 
by  this  fascinating  account  of  it.  It  is  just  as  good 
a  book  as  "Jerry  of  the  Islands"  —  and  it  may  be 
that  it  is  even  a  bit  more  absorbing. 


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Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue          New  Tor* 


A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border 

By  HAMLIN  GARLAND 

With  illustrations  by  Alice  Barber  Stephens.    $1.60;   Autograph  Edition, 
$2.50. 

"Garland  has  written  the  epic  of  the  pioneer — a  masterpiece  of  American 
narrative." — The  Chicago  Tribune. 

William  Dean  Howells  writes: 

"As  you  read  the  story  you  realize  it  the  memorial  of  a  generation,  as 
you  review  it  you  perceive  it  an  epic  of  such  mood  and  make  as  has 
not  been  imagined  before." 

".  .  .  It  is  a  psychological  synthesis  of  personal  and  general  conditions 
in  a  new  country  such  as  has  not  got  into  literature  before.  That,  in 
itself,  if  it  were  nothing  else,  is  a  precious  contribution  to  human  knowl- 
edge, and  hereafter  no  one  who  wishes  to  know  what  the  conditions  of 
the  Middle  West  were  fifty  years  ago,  or  the  conditions  of  well-nigh  all 
America  throughout  its  beginnings  have  been,  can  ignore  this  very  un- 
exampled book." 

Col.  Theodore  Roosevelt  writes: 

"We  are  fortunate  in  having  in  this  book  a  permanent  record  attractive- 
ly and  clear-sightedly  written,  of  the  life  of  those  individualistic,  self- 
reliant  native  farming  folk,  who  played  by  far  the  greatest  part  in  the 
upbuilding  of  our  western  territory." 

Edwin  Markham  writes: 

"  'A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border'  echoes  the  strain  and  struggle  of  a  mighty 

human  epoch  of  the  herculean  labors  of  men  and  women,  pushing  back 

the  forest  and  the  frontiers  to  make  way  for  civilization. 

"This  book,  in  its  wide  sweep  and  basic  truth  and  sharp  delineation, 

reaches  an  epic  significance,  and  will  be  a  store-house  for  history  and 

fiction  down  years  to  come." 


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Publishers       64-66  Fifth  Avenue        New  York 


The  Dwelling  Place  of  Light 

BY  WINSTON  CHURCHILL 

Author  of  "The  Inside  of  the  Cup,"  "Richard  Carvel,"  etc. 
With  frontispiece  by  Arthur  I.  Keller. 

Cloth,  i2mo.,  $1.60 

"One  of  the  most  absorbing  and  fascinating  romances, 
and  one  of  the  most  finished  masterpieces  of  serious  literary 
art  which  have  appeared  in  this  year  or  in  this  century." — 
New  York  Tribune. 

"It  is  a  powerful  story,  wonderfully  told,  the  gifted  author 
has  succeeded  in  gripping  the  reader's  attention  and  in 
holding  his  interest  to  the  very  last.  .  .  .  Janet  is  a  charac- 
ter that  will  live,  for  there  are  thousands  of  young  women 
who  will  recognize  in  her  some  phase  of  their  own  experi- 
ence and  some  of  their  own  aspirations." — Philadelphia 
Ledger. 

"He  has  never  hitherto  depicted  a  woman  character  with 
quite  so  much  insight,  skill  and  surety  as  he  portrays  Janet 
Bumpus." — New  York  Times. 

America,  dynamic,  changing,  diverse,  with  new  laws  and 
old  desires,  new  industries  and  old  social  rights,  new  people 
and  old — this  is  the  environment  in  which  Mr.  Churchill 
places  the  heroine  of  his  new  book.  He  has  never  written 
a  more  entertaining  story ;  he  has  never  written  one  that  is 
more  significant  in  its  interpretation  of  human  relation- 
ships to-day. 


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Publishers     64r-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


H.  G.  WELLS'  LATEST  NOFEL 

The  Soul  of  a  Bishop 

By  the  Author  of  "Mr.  Britling" 

Cloth,  $1.50;  Leather,  $2.50 

"Its  portrait  of  the  Bishop  is  masterly,  it  has  power  and  inter- 
est.  — New  York  Times. 

"The  book  is  enormously  suggestive."— Philadelphia  Public 
Ledger. 

"The  reader  follows  with  breathless  interest  the  narrative  of  his 
passionate  quest  for  a  real  God  and  a  real  religion,  and  the  poverty 
and  hardship  in  which  this  quest  involve  him  and  his  family. 
But  the  questions  are  so  frankly  what  any  one  of  us  may  be  asking 
if  the  war  comes  home  to  us  as  vitally  as  it  has  to  England,  that 
the  reader  follows  with  absorbed  interest  the  Bishop's  inner  strug- 
gles and  cannot  but  be  stirred  to  clearer  thinking.  .  .  .  The  sin- 
cerity and  earnestness  of  this  quest  of  a  very  human  man  for  some- 
thing that  will  satisfy  the  spirit  within  is  what  one  feels  and  what 
is  convincing.  .  .  .  Will  help  clear  the  mental  atmosphere  for  many. 
For  others  it  will  stir  to  a  work  much  needed  at  the  present  time — 
thinking,  that  there  may  be  the  sifting  necessary  when  the  new 
shall  appear.  .  .  .  The  book  cannot  but  be  helpful  to  those  battling 
their  way  through  forms  and  creeds  and  dogmas  to  pure  truth.  It 
is  written  sincerely  and  earnestly  by  one  who  tells  frankly  what  he 
has  found  on  the  road." — Philadelphia  Telegraph. 

"Era  making.  ...  A  tour  de  force,  a  power,  that  will  make  people 
think,  that  will,  perhaps,  start  a  vast  movement.  In  any  event  it  is 
a  vital,  a  compelling  contribution  to  the  life  of  these  times.  It  is 
the  'Robert  Elsmere'  of  its  day.  No  one  who  would  understand 
the  new  world  forces  that  have  been  unleashed  and  are  so  feebly 
known  about  should  pass  it  by.  It  is,  in  brief,  a  book  that  must  be 
read." — Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

"Utmost  dash  and  brilliancy As  brilliant  a  piece  of  writing 

as  Mr.  Wells  has  ever  offered  the  public;  it  is  entertaining  from 
beginning  to  end.  ...  It  should  arouse  some  serious  thought  even 
in  those  who  will  be  most  shocked  by  the  attacks  on  dogmatic  re- 
ligion,"— New  York  Sun. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     Hew  York 


Christine 

BY  ALICE  CHOLMONDELEY 

Cloth,  I2mo.,  $1.25 

"A  book  which  is  true  in  essentials — so  real  that  one  is  tempted  to 
doubt  whether  it  is  fiction  at  all— doubly  welcome  and  doubly  impor- 
tant. ...  It  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  find  a  book  in  which  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  German  people  is  pictured  so  cleverly,  with  so 
much  understanding  and  convincing  detail.  .  .  .  Intelligent,  gener- 
ous, sweet-natured,  broadminded,  quick  to  see  and  to  appreciate  all 
that  is  beautiful  either  in  nature  or  in  art,  rejoicing  humbly  over 
her  own  great  gift,  endowed  with  a  keen  sense  of  humour,  Chris- 
tine's is  a  thoroughly  wholesome  and  lovable  character.  But 
charming  as  Christine's  personality  and  her  literary  style  both  are, 
the  main  value  of  the  book  lies  in  its  admirably  lucid  analysis  of 
the  German  mind." — New  York  Times. 

"Absolutely  different  from  preceding  books  of  the  war.  Its  very 
freedom  and  girlishness  of  expression,  its  very  simplicity  and  open- 
heartedness,  prove  the  truth  of  its  pictures." — New  York  World. 

"A  luminous  story  of  a  sensitive  and  generous  nature,  the  spon- 
taneous expression  of  one  spirited,  affectionate,  ardently  ambitious, 
and  blessed  with  a  sense  of  humour." — Boston  Herald. 

"The  next  time  some  sentimental  old  lady  of  either  sex,  who 
'cant  see  why  we  have  to  send  our  boys  abroad/  comes  into  your 
vision,  and  you  know  they  are  too  unintelligent  (they  usually  are) 
to  understand  a  serious  essay,  try  to  trap  them  into  reading  'Chris- 
tine.' If  you  succeed  we  know  it  will  do  them  good." — Town  and 
Country. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000038091     5 


